A Long Weekend
by Space Clod
Summary: As Peridot and the Crystal Gems reach completion of their drill and the destruction of the Cluster is close at hand, Peridot begins to fear about her future. What will happen to her when she has outlived her usefulness to the Crystal Gems?
1. Intro

Sunset. After a long day's effort of building the new and improved drill, the Crystal Gems and Peridot have decided to call it a day. It will be dark soon, they're making fast progress, and Steven needs his rest. Amethyst had wandered off several hours ago, and Garnet has taken Steven to bed. Peridot can be seen alone, lounging on a bale of hay.

[[Log Date: 718.

It has been 6 planetary rotations or "days" since my miscalculation had resulted in the destruction of our first drill machine. I have since repaired my standing with the Amethyst, and the Steven had somehow tricked me into confessing my mistake to the rest of the Crystal Gems... The Pearl was strangely accepting of my ineptitude and did not reprimand me, and thankfully, she did not begin spontaneous singing... The Permafusion, on the other hand, gave an annoying verbal sound of disapproval and adjusted her visor before leaving... I don't understand her at all. All I know is that she annoys me to no end!

Peridot. Facet 5. End log.]]

Peridot put the tape recorder down and fell onto her back with a sigh. The drill was almost complete. Tomorrow would be the last day of work. The day after would be testing. After that... Peridot groaned with frustration as she covered her eyes with her forearm.

"You're being oddly tame this evening, Peridot." Said a familiar voice. Peridot set her arm down at her side and looked up at Pearl.

"Yeah... I suppose so." Peridot said with a sigh.

"You suppose so? That doesn't really sound like you." Pearl said with a a hint of concern.

"What can I say? I have alot on my mind. Not that you'd understand!" Peridot said with disgruntled annoyance.

"Now that sounds more like Peridot." Pearl grinned. "Well, I'm going to tidy up a bit then I'm heading back to the temple. Try not to stay out too late."

Pearl began to walk back to the barn. The Crystal Gems have been more lenient with Peridot's roaming since she had saved Amethyst from the runaway drill head. Maybe they had finally begun to start to trust Peridot? She doubted that. She had nowhere to go, and the Crystal Gems knew that.

"Hey, Pearl." Peridot said as she sat back up and turned to face Pearl.

"Hm?" Pearl stopped mid step and turned her head back. "Yes?"

"Has my efforts been... Satisfactory?" Peridot asked, concern beginning to leak into her voice.

"Where is this coming from all of a sudden?"

Peridot groaned. "Just answer the question!... P-lease." Please was a new word that Steven had taught her. She hoped that she had used it right and that Steven wasn't lying about its meaning.

"Oh, very well... Lets see." Pearl said as she rested her index finger on her chin and gave it some thought. "Well. You're brash, rude, and throw temper tantrums over the smallest of details. You have a lack proper grammar, and you have a tendency to skip small steps that leads to larger mistakes."

"Thank you for such a scathing review." Peridot groaned and fell back, missing the hey and hitting the ground with a thud.

"I wasn't finished yet." Pearl said with a smile and minor annoyance. "While all that I've stated is true, you also possess an admirable work ethic as well as a remarkable technical prowess and a desire to learn. It's clear that you want to learn and understand, and not just about the task at hand but about everything. It'll take time, but you're showing notable progress."

Peridot couldn't help but smile. She's never actually been given a positive work report before. She's gotten adequate reports, but never any that contained compliments. She felt... Accomplished. "Pearl. Thank you."

"You're welcome, Peridot. Now, would you mind if I asked why you wanted to know my thoughts on your progress?"

"I was just curious! That's all!... I wanted to know what" Peridot groaned. "What my superior tells her superior. Simple chain of command stuff."

"You're worried about what Garnet thinks of you?"

"Well yeah! All she ever does is glare at me through those tinted visors and make fracken comments at my expense!"

"Peridot! Watch your language!"

"Why should I!?" Peridot was getting angry now. She jumped back up onto her feet and stomped. Here comes another temper tantrum. "It's always _her having free reign makes me uncomfortable_ and _you need a chaperon_ and _you're just mad cause you're single_! What is her fracken deal!"

"Peridot." Pearl got real serious real fast. "I don't think I'm the one you should be asking."

Pearl turned around and headed for the barn. She was right, and Peridot knew it. She had to confront Garnet at some point, and she had to do it soon. The drill was reaching the final stages of completion, then they go after the Cluster. Peridot knew the consequences of allying with the Crystal Gems to stop the Cluster. To save her own life, she committed treason against Homeworld. But that wasn't what was bothering her right now.

Peridot laid back down on the hay pile and looked at the twilight sky and sighed. "The drill is almost complete... When this is over... I'll no longer be of any use to the Crystal Gems. I'll be sent back to the bubble dungeon or worse." A small tears trickled from the corner of her eyes, followed by more.


	2. Thursday Night

Later that night in the temple's inner most chamber. Garnet is examining the imprisoned gem fusions when Peal and Amethyst walk in.

"Garnet... We need to talk." Pearl says in a small tone.

"About Peridot?" Garnet asks.

"Yes." Pearl responds. "I know what we agreed on, but -"

"Do we really need to bubble her?" Asked Amethyst. "She's been a huge help, and its not like she can hurt anyone. She's harmless."

"Harmless?" Garnet retorts. "The Frybo children are harmless. As long as Peridot has free reign she's a danger to this planet!"

"But... She could've run off at any point over the past couple days, but she hasn't." Pearl responded.

"Where would she go?" Asked Garnet. "Homeworld warp is down, and even if it weren't, without her limb enhancers she couldn't make it to any warp pad before we caught her. She's stuck and she knows it."

"But she's not so bad once you get to know her!" Amethyst retorts. "And she's really trying!"

"This isn't like when we found _you,_ Amethyst." Garnet says trying to keep her composure. "Peridot is a homeworld gem."

"So were **you**!" Yelled Amethyst.

"But I'm not now!" Garnet is getting angry.

"So you're saying Ruby and Sapphire gets a chance but not Peridot!?" Amethyst retorts.

Garnet and Amethyst get into each other's faces, and Pearl steps in between the two. "Look. Garnet." Pearl begins, and Garnet and Amethyst back off. "We just think that maybe Peridot should be given a chance once the Cluster is dealt with. You know what Homeworld was like, and if Peridot's Yellow Diamond is anything like the Yellow Diamond 6,000 years ago... Well, that would explain alot. And who knows? Maybe Homeworld is even worse off now than it was then, and up until recently that was the only world she knew. She's not like Jasper. We can't punish her for ignorance."

"You're wrong." Garnet says as she adjusts her visor. "I've seen it. No matter how many times I check my future vision, she will betray us. That is certain."

Pearl gasps.

"No way!" Amethyst says in shock.

"We have one of two options. We bubble her, or..." Garnet reveals Lapis's mirror, newly repaired. "We use this. With Peridot in the mirror we can learn anything we need to about Homeworld and Yellow Diamond. This time, we can be ready before it happens."

Pearl looks at the mirror with contempt. "Garnet... I'm not sure about this."

Garnet lays a gentle hand on Pearl's shoulder. "Pearl. Homeworld is coming, and you remember the last time they were here. We need every resource we can gather. We need Peridot's inside information, but we don't _need_ Peridot."

"Sounds like you already made up your mind." Amethyst grunts as she kicks the wall.

"Amethyst! Don't be like this." Garnet warns.

"Like what!? Difficult!?" Amethyst screams. "You gonna bubble me too!?" Amethyst storms out of the room, but before she leaves she turns around and gives one last comment. "You know. If you wanna punish somebody, do it after their mistake! Not before!"

"See Pearl." Garnet watches Amethyst leave. "Its already beginning."


	3. Friday Morning (Part 1)

The next day Peridot is sitting on the same hay pile with her tape recorder in hand. Garnet is sitting on a tractor tire with a piece of straw in her mouth. Off in the distance the moo of a cow can be heard, and Garnet twitches with irritation. Steven is at Funland with Connie. Amethyst and Pearl haven't arrived yet.

[[Log Date: 719

The Steven is at 'Funland' with the Connie. Apparently going to the grand opening of a new death machine is more important than stopping a gem mutant from destroying this lousy planet. Though this may be _advantageous_. With the Steven out of the way, there will be less distractions. The Amethyst and the Pearl have yet to arrive. While this behavior is standard for the Amethyst, this level of tardiness is quite unusual for the Pearl. This leaves me alone with the Permafusion... I can feel her death gaze from behind those inefficient visors as I speak.

"You know I can hear you right!" Garnet says in the background.

Her auditory range is remarkable. I can't get away with anything when she's around!

"You know it!" ]]

Peridot turns off her tape recorder. "Do you mind!?" Peridot yells. "I'm trying document my logs!"

Garnet just fixes her visor and sits there.

Peridot has finally had enough or Garnet's smug attitude. Something inside her snaps. She gets up and marches right over to Garnet, stops when she's right in Garnet's face, and stomps her foot on the ground. "Just what is your deal!?"

"Excuse me?" Garnet says in a slightly less monotone response than average.

"You heard me! WHAT! IS! YOUR! DEAL!? You're just so frustrating! You're always silently judging me! Staring through those stupid visors only speaking when you want to be a... a... smart ass!" _Smart ass_ was a new word taught to Peridot by Amethyst. Sadly, she didn't need to wonder if she used that word right. She did, and Garnet may be angry... Kinda hard to tell because of that visor.

"I'm the smart ass!?" Confirmed. Garnet's angry. "You're the one whose constantly running her mouth off! And this!" Garnet takes Peridot's tape player.

"HEY!" Peridot reaches for it, but Garnet holds it up out of reach. Peridot tries jumping for it several times but its always just out of reach.

"Who're you kidding with this! These recordings are meaningless!" She smashes the tape recorder in her fist.

"WHY DO YOU KEEP BREAKING MY THINGS!?" Peridot screams with rage as she slaps Garnet accross the face, knocking her visor onto the ground. She then stomps on it breaking it into tiny pieces. Garnet stands up and glares down at Peridot and she crackes her neck. "Eep..."

With a swift kick to her jaw, Garnet hits Peridot airborn just high enough that the two are eye level again. Garnet forms a gauntlet on her right hand and punches Peridot square in the face, sending her flying through the air into a tree. The tree splinters on impact and Peridot gasps, the wind knocked out of her. Her visor landing in three pieces on the ground.

Peridot slowly slides down the remainder of the tree until her limp and busted body hits the ground. The pain was excruciating and coursing all through her body. Other gems her size would've released their physical forms with this amount of damage, but Peridots are technicians. Because of that their bodies are more durable than the average gem. Afterall, something heavy like an incubator drill head could fall on them at any given time. But the various internal damages plaguing her body with pain made her wish that she did poof.

"Why?" Peridot weakly asks as she struggled to stand on her failing legs but just wound up falling back against the tree again. "Why do you... Keep breaking... Everything... Can't you understa-"

Garnet cuts Peridot off. "UNDERSTAND!? Why should I understand you! You haven't tried to understand me!"

"BECAUSE ITS NOT POSSIBLE!" Peridot screams, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "I JUST DON'T GET YOU!"

"I AM THE PRODUCT OF RUBY AND SAPPHIRE'S LOVE! WHAT'S THERE TO NOT GET!?"

"THAT WORD!" Peridot tries to stand again only to fail and fall on her knees. Whether she was crying in pain or frustration she didn't know. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

Garnet stops dead in her tracks, anger replaced with shock and confusion. "How could she not know what love is? I don't know!? Its a lie! Its gotta be! Does she look like she's lying?"

In a flash of light, Garnet splits.


	4. Friday Morning (Part 2)

Out of the ball of light that was once Garnet came two smaller gems, Ruby and Sapphire. The red one, Ruby, landed flat on her butt with a thud. The blue one, Sapphire, gracefully floats down and lands on her feet. Ruby stands up and begins to pace.

"No way! Just no freaken way!" Ruby yells as the grass beneath her begins to smolder.

"Ruby. The grass." Sapphire warns as the smoldering grass begins to catch fire.

Ruby jumps off the grass and lands on the dirt road near Sapphire. "Its LOVE Sapphire! How can she not know what love is!"

"She calls eyes _vision spheres_." Sapphire retorts in usual monotone.

Peridot looks on in blurry confusion. She saw two Garnets a minute ago and now four little gems... Is she seeing things? Peridot reaches up to her forehead to examine her gem. "Nope. Not cracked."

"SO!?" Screams Ruby. "Its love!" She then turns her attention to the wobbly and hopelessly confused Peridot. "YOU!"

Peridot fearfully lets out an "Eep!" As Ruby runs towards her. She grabs Peridot by the throat, lifts her up, and pushes her back into the tree with a sickening thud.

"WHAT IS LOVE!?" Ruby questioningly yells as she tightens her grip around Peridot's neck, steam emanating off her grip.

"DON'T HURT ME!" Peridot screams out of fear and agony as the suffocating grip begins to burn into her neck.

"No more." Sapphire says as she lays a gentle hand on Ruby's shoulder.

Ruby calms down and realizes that she's kind of killing Peridot right now, so she lets go of the green gem's neck, and Peridot slumps back to the ground with a hand shaped burn around her neck.

 _She's cracked! Mentally cracked! I'm gonna die! She's gonna kill me! I'm gonna die!_ Peridot's mind went frantic. She couldn't think straight, only panic.

Then the blue gem, Sapphire, placed a gentle hand on Peridot's shoulder. Something about her stoic, yet gentle, approach calmed Peridot down. _These two gems are opposites in every way, one calm and gentle while the other is a raging lunatic... Maybe that's how they can stay fused for so long? They're like two counterbalances on a perpetual motion device._ Peridot may beginning to understand... But just a little.

Peridot's train of thought was suddenly derailed when Sapphire began to speak. "Peridot... Love is a feeling of deep affection. Its a bond between individuals that can't be described or taught, only learned."

"So... I'm supposed to know what this _love_ is by trying to understand what can't be explained and can't be taught?" Peridot looked up in confusion as she gently touched her neck burns to assess their severity. "ARE YOU CRACKED!?"

"UGH! AND YOU CALL US THE CLODS!?" Ruby yells as the ground around her begins to smoke. Peridot flinches and brings her hands up in self-defense, which causes Ruby to stare at Peridot with confusion. "What's your damage..."

"Ruby. Remember what Pearl said." Sapphire mentions as she glides over to Ruby.

"Wait for the perfect moment to strike?"

"No, Ruby." Sapphire sounded frustrated. "What she said last night."

"Yeah. Yeah. ' _Can't punish her for ignorance._ '" Ruby says with a defeated tone before she turns away from Peridot, crosses her arms, and sits down with a thud.

Sapphire looks at Peridot and back to Ruby. She closes her eye and looks forward to a solution. After several moments, the silence is broken.

"I have an idea, Ruby." Sapphire says with a grin before she sits down next to Ruby and begins whispering in her ear.

As hard as Peridot tried, she couldn't make out what the two were talking about. The painful ringing in her ears wasn't helping. After a while of hushed whispers and giggling and several repeated uses of the phrase "that's bad" and "ooh", the two got up and did a clingy spinning display that was so awkward to witness that Peridot wished that Ruby had poofed her. Peridot had to look away as the two had become garnet again.

Garnet walked over to Peridot and offered her a hand up, smiling. Peridot didn't accept the hand up and weakly stood on her own.

"Peridot. I'm sorry. I didn't understand and assumed that you were just being difficult." Garnet said, still smiling. Without the visor Peridot could see the look in Garnet's eyes. She showed no malice or misguidance. She may actually be sorry.

Peridot just looked up at Garnet in silence. Not only did she not know what to say, she wasn't sure if she wanted to say anything. But after a few seconds, she decided to just speak anyway. "So _leader_ " Peridot used a sarcastic, slightly insulting tone. "how do you suggest we move forward?"

Garnet ignored Peridot's biting remark. "Peridot." Garnet extended her hand invitingly. "Fuse with me."

((Jdph Wlph! Ilqg wkh uhihuhqfh dqg SP ph eb 8 SP HVW rq 12/7/2015! Jhw lw uljkw, zlq d sulch!))


	5. Friday Afternoon

"Ehhhhhh... Wuhhhhh..." Was all Peridot could say as she glanced at the hand, up to Garnet's face, and back to the hand.

"We're at a crossroads, Peridot." Garnet said reassuringly. "Neither of us can understand each other through words. We need to act."

"I... I don't really know..." Peridot was hesitant. "Every time you act, I get hurt."

"We're not fighting. I won't hurt you." Garnet smiled. "Peridot. I can't explain love to you. You have to experience it for yourself, but I can show you how Ruby and Sapphire feel... I'm asking you to trust me, so that one day I may be able to trust you."

"I... Alright, but just for a moment! And the other Gems better not see or hear of this! Got it!" Peridot couldn't believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. She actually agreed to such a ridiculous action? Garnet was able to get Peridot to agree, and didn't use force. She must be a pretty competent leader after all... Or Peridot was concussed.

Peridot awkwardly took Garnet's hand. "I... Don't know how to dance."

"Its ok." Said Garnet. "Dancing isn't necessary, it just helps synchronize the gems mental and physical state. Just relax and let it happen."

Peridot lets out a sigh and all three gems glow. In a burst of light Peridot and Garnet become one big, singular soldier with two sets of arms... But the figure was short lived. Before the light had fully dimmed on the new fusion, it had begun to violently glow again. The figure contorted in a massive disfigured blob of light, the three gems spiraling around inside it. The figure tried to coalesce again, but it was to no avail. The fusion splits apart, lasting maybe a second. Garnet lands hard on her butt utterly shocked and devastated. She looks at Peridot, who is looking down terrified at Garnet. She takes a step back, tears falling down the sides of her face.

"Peridot! I-" Garnet reaches her hand out for Peridot, but she turns away and runs off into the woods. Garnet just sits there, looking off into the direction Peridot ran... Hand still extended.

About a half an hour later, Pearl and Amethyst arrive at the barn to begin work on the drill.

"Oh, Garnet!" Pearl says with excitement as the two of them walk up to the now standing up gem. "Amethyst and I have come up with a way to help Peridot understand fusion! What we need to do is-"

"Its too late for that!" Garnet yelled as she clenched her fists and ground her teeth together. "Its done."

"Garnet?" Pearl asks with concern.

"Uhm... Where's Peridot?" Amethysts asks after she takes a quick look around.

"She was scared... She wasn't ready, and I pushed the matter... So she ran." Garnet regained her composure and resummoned her visor.

Amethyst took a step towards Garnet, but Pearl put a hand on Amethyst's shoulder and she stopped. "What did you do?" Pearl asked.

"I asked her to fuse with me." Pearl and Amethyst's jaws dropped. "I figured... That if she could just feel how Ruby and Sapphire feels." Garnet looks down at her gems. "Then she would understand... But I was wrong." Garnet hugged herself. "I felt pain, sadness, and loneliness. The fusion couldn't sustain itself, and we split."

"That's pretty janked up." Amethyst says with disgust. "Wouldn't you have seen that coming?"

"It wasn't an outcome Sapphire saw. It was impossible." Garnet says.

"Well it happened!" Amethyst yells.

"Arguing isn't going to help us find Peridot!" Pearl yells. Garnet and Amethyst look at her kind of shocked. "Amethyst and I will look in the surrounding area. Garnet, you go get Steven and look through town. His play date with Connie should be ending soon. Now lets hurry before she gets too far!"

Amethyst and Pearl go into the woods. "Keep it together." Garnet says to herself as she walks into town.

((Wow this one came out long... So I'm breaking it into 2 smaller chapters... This really is playing out to be A Long Weekend, huh?... Sorry, I couldn't resist making a lame joke and laughing at it.))


	6. Friday Evening

In the woods.

Amethyst and Pearl are looking for Peridot. They found some fabric in the brush and thorns that look like they may have been part of her uniform. They were on the right track. Amethyst is in a foul mood and Pearl is being silent.

"This isn't right." Amethyst groans.

"It was a mistake, Amethyst." Pearl says as an excuse.

"One that shouldn't have happened! Why's she always gotta do this!?" Amethyst kicks a rock into two rocks.

"Amethyst?" Pearl walks over to her. "Is this about when we first found you?"

"She acted the same then too!" Amethyst yells. "Why is she so stubborn!?"

"Look, Amethyst." Pearl explains. "The war may be over, but it left its mark... And not just on the planet." Amethyst looks up at Pearl. "We had allies... Some of which turned on us, be it out of fear or because they were spies all along. After a thousand years of death and betrayal... It becomes hard to accept new people into your life, and it becomes easier to just lock them out. Please try to understand that, and give Garnet some time."

"I'll try, P." Amethyst half heartedly says. "... Why is it so easy for you though?"

"Because its easy for you." Pearl explains. "You have a good judge in character, and I haven't seen you befriend anybody that was bad... Reckless and uncivilized perhaps, but never bad."

Amethyst hugs Pearl. "Thanks, P."

In Beach City

Steven is in front of his dad's car wash. Greg and Connie are in the van, and the ignition is on. The day of activities at Funland is over, and Greg is taking Connie home.

"Bye, Dad! Bye, Connie!" Steven says as he waves goodbye to Connie and his dad.

"Bye, Steven! I'll be back four my book on Sunday!" Connie says with a wave.

"Don't stay up too late, Kiddo!" Greg says as he drives off.

"Ok!" Steven yells towards the moving van. He then notices Garnet. "Hello, Garnet! How's the drill commin' along?"

"It isn't. Steven," Garnet gets on one knee and explains, "Peridot has run off. We need to find her."

"What happened?" Steven asks. "Did you two have an argument?"

"Why would you think that?" Garnet asks, trying to keep her composure.

"Last night, Peridot looked worried." Steven began to explain. "She was pacing back and forth in the bathroom. I asked her what was wrong, and she said that she was going to ask you about staying once the Cluster had been destroyed. I was so excited that I almost didn't make it to the toilet!"

Garnet stood back up. "We never had that conversation."

"Well why not?" Steven was concerned. "Garnet?"

"Sometimes. When two people don't understand each other... The conversation breaks down. People get defensive, and people fight." Garnet explains.

"She did run away, right?" Steven asks.

"Why would you think otherwise?"

"Pearl told me something this morning. That Peridot was scared because she thought that you would bubble her after the drill was built. I know you wouldn't do that, but I just wanted to make sure." Steven said with a grin.

"Sure..." Garnet says as she adjusts her visor. "Lets go look for Peridot."

Steven nods in agreement.

Later that evening...

Greg Universe is on his way back from dropping off Connie. Her parents weren't at home, and Connie hadn't had dinner yet, so he stayed back four an extra hour or so to whip up something quick. After Connie was fed, he left. It was getting dark, and Greg was driving past the corn fields.

"Jeez. I can't wait for Connie to be old enough to drive herself. Gas is so expensive! But then Steven would be old enough to have _the talk_ , so I guess I'm not too excited for the future. Might as well just enjoy the now!"

Greg looks through his CDs to put in some new tunes when he notices corn rustling in his peripheral vision and a small green figure emerges in the road, his high beams reflecting off her gem.

"The Hey!?" Greg yells as he slams on his brakes.

He hits the figure as his van serves, and it poofs in a puff of smoke. Greg's van screeches to a stop, and the air bag goes off. Greg isn't hurt, just startled. Greg runs out to the street to see what he hit. There, off on the side of the road, Greg finds a small green triangular gem lying on the ground.

"Aw Jeez." Greg says as he picks up the gem and gets into the back of his van.

((Props goes out to Portalfan4351 ACT for winning the contest mentioned in my cipher at the end of chapter 4! He won the grand prize of picking Greg to make an appearance in "A Long Weekend!" Kinda feel bad for Peridot right now, but it'll all be worth it at the end... Hopefully.

The cipher last chapter can be solved with the Caesar-Cipher's 3 backwards key because there were 3 chapters before it! Get it? Well, I figured that I'd keep the ciphers going and actually include a hint somewhere in the story for the key to solving the riddles. This won't be every time, but every so often.

Kvik erh Tivm mr e zer. Rsxlmrk ger ks avsrk livi, vmklx?))


	7. Friday Night

Greg had picked up Peridot's gem in a hurry and retreated to the back of his van where he pulled out a flashlight to inspect it.

Greg lets out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. It's not cracked. Now to find some place safe to put it." Greg sets the gem down and begins rummaging through his belongings. "I think I have an old shoebox in here somewhere... Pizza box? No. Waffle Iron? No. Burrito? Ew..."

As he's looking for the shoe box, the gem begins to glow and Peridot reforms. "AHHHHHHHH!" Peridot suddenly screams.

"AHHHHHHHH!" Greg yells in surprise and hits his head hard off the ceiling in his van. Greg flops down on his butt and grabs his chest, breathing heavily. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"I!? You! You were the one that committed vehicular negligence!" Peridot yells pointing at Greg.

Greg groans. "Yeeeeeahh... I suppose you could say that... Atleast you're ok?"

"Yes. I am, _ok_." Peridot says as she sits down in the back of the van. "Though it is rather fortuitous running into you here, Dad."

Greg groans. "Peridot. I'm not your dad. I'm Steven's dad. We've been through this!"

"Nonsense! Dad is your designated title of authority, so I will call you such! That is how hierarchy works." Peridot says with defiance. "... Also, Steven finds it funny when I call you that."

"Fine. I'll let it go because I almost killed you." Greg sighs. "What'cha need?"

"I need you to pilot this _van_ as far away from the Crystal Gems as possible." Peridot explains.

"Oh boy... What'd you do now?" Greg asks.

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" Peridot complains. "It was all that Garnet!"

"Ok, ok. Calm down." Greg says as he motions for her to turn down the volume of her voice. He then closes the van door. "Tell me what happened."

Peridot makes herself comfortable, sitting down on Greg's pillow and begins to tell the story of events thus far. About her talk with Pearl, and her confrontation with Garnet, and about the fight with the very violent raccoon that she had encountered between then and now.

"So, you just ran off?" Greg asks. "Why?"

"I... I don't know..." Peridot says as she brings her knees up to her face and hugs her legs.

"I think you do." Greg says with a hint of old man wisdom in his voice.

Peridot remains silent.

Greg stares her down with a smile.

Peridot ignores it.

Greg gets a little more serious.

Peridot is shaking, starting to crack.

"Peridot." Greg says with that tone a parent uses when a child has done something wrong.

"It hurt, ok!" Peridot cracks. "I could feel what the two of them felt! And I've never felt anything close to that! Ever!"

Peridot buries her head deeper in her knees and goes silent.

"Peridot?" Greg asks as he reaches a hand out to her, only to get it swatted away as she quickly looks up.

Peridot looks angry. "On Homeworld, you do your job right nobody questions it! You make a mistake, you get punished! You defy authority, you get punished! You fulfil your designated purpose, and you live to do it again! And then, a Jasper gets thrown into the power conduit! And boom! Stuck in enemy territory! You just keep trying to do your job! Its all you have! Maybe help will come!? Maybe a response from Homeworld!?" Peridot goes somber "Maybe... Somebody would notice... Maybe... Someone would care."

"Peridot..." Greg tries to say something, but Peridot cuts him off by accident.

"All I had was my work. My machines. And my logs. Because of the Crystal Gems, I lost my machines, my informant, my limb enhancers, my standing, my dignity... I lost everything..."

"Peri-" Greg gets cut off again.

"Then I get captured, and Steven frees me! I start working on a way to stop the Cluster. So I could live, I allied with the gems who took everything from me! I gave them my services! I'm trying to understand life here! But I knew it was pointless... I knew that once the Cluster was stopped that I would just be imprisoned again... Then Garnet makes me feel... THAT! A feeling that I'm never going to experience for myself because I'm just going to be shoved into a bubble!... It's too cruel!"

Peridot breaks down and begins to cry uncontrollably.

Greg hugs Peridot, and at first Peridot tenses up. But eventually she loosens up in his embrace.

"Peridot." Greg says with comfort. "I'm sure Garnet didn't mean it that way. For the Gems, fusion is their biggest form of understanding. It shows that they trust each other and are willing to put their lives in each other's hands."

Greg pauses for a moment, and Peridot sniffles. Greg lets go of the embrace and Peridot wipes the tears from her eyes. Greg continues his speech. "I know from experience that fusion isn't always helpful, but talking is. If you just calmly explain what's on your mind and in your heart, without throwing a tantrum, the Gems will understand, and everything'll work out." Greg smiles. "And don't worry. You won't be alone. I'll be right there."

"But... What if the Crystal Gems refuse to listen?" Peridot asks. "What if they bubble me anyway?"

"Then they'll have to go through me and Steven... Well more Steven than me." Greg says with a laugh and a dopy grin as he rubs the back of his head. "I'm not exactly Arnold Swarzenegger."

Peridot smiles. "I feel better now... Thank you, Dad."

Greg sighs. "Again with the 'dad' stuff? Oh well... Let's get up front and take you back to the temple."

Greg opens the back door of the van, and standing just outside the door is a mass of arms and legs forced into the shape of a human body. In its center is one giant eye with a clump of gem shards in the center like a pupil. The whole eye is surrounded by little twitching fingers.

"Ah jeez." Greg says as the mutant reaches for him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Greg sees a blur of green. Next thing he sees the gem mutant recoiling back away from the van, Peridot clinging to its eyeball face. The mutant rips Peridot free and throws her. But as Peridot gets hurled, it poofs.

Peridot rolls on the street and skids to a stop. Greg runs over to help Peridot up. As he does, she spits the gem shard clump into her hand and grins. Greg smiles to hide his disgust.

"So... What do I do with it?" Peridot asks.

"I dunno!" Greg yells. "Put it in a bubble!?"

"I don't know how to do that!" Peridot yells back.

"YOU WHAT!?"

At that point, the clump begins to glow.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Greg and Peridot both scream and Peridot accidentally encases the gem in a green bubble.

It stops glowing. Peridot and Greg simultaneously mirror each other with a sigh relief and pokes the bubble curiously. It disappears.

"Where did it go?" Greg asked.

"Not here." Peridot says with a shrug.

The moment is ruined as the corn begins to rustle and more gem mutants begin to emerge from the fields.

Meanwhile...

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Steven all meet up back at the house. Nobody has found Peridot. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are all standing around with sullen faces. Steven excuses himself to the bathroom. Not even a minute later...

"GUYS!" Steven yells from inside the bathroom.

Garnet knocks down the door with a gauntlet, and Amethyst and Pearl are behind her, weapons drawn. Floating in the middle of the bathroom is a green bubble with a fusion experiment in it. The Crystal Gems unsummon their weapons and just look at it in confusion.

"Its a good thing I was already sitting down." Steven says with a grin.

((An alternate name for this chapter was going to be The Dr Greg Show, but I kept it Friday Night to stick with a cohesive naming theme. Oh boy. This is another long one, and I wanted to break it up... But breaking it up would mean an extra click away from some happy... And Yellow Diamond knows this story needs some happy right about now! Also, yay! I got to end a chapter on a poop joke!))


	8. Saturday Morning

The Crystal Gems investigate the bubble in silence, eyeing it and poking at it.

"Well we just can't leave it here." Garnet says as she pokes the bubble, and it teleports away to the center of the temple.

"But why did she send it here?" Pearl asks, more confused than ever. Off screen the toilet flushes and the sink runs. "Its not exactly safe here."

"I think its sweet." Steven says as he dries his hands with a towel and rejoins the group.

"That she sent it to the bathroom?" Amethyst asks in confusion and disgust.

"Kinda." Steven explains. "Think about it. We send the bubbles to the center of the temple because its safe, right?"

"Yes, Steven." Pearl responds, not quite getting Steven's point. "It's the safest place we can put them. Nothing can harm them there."

"And that's how Peridot sees our bathroom!" Steven says with an excited grin. "It's her safe place!"

"Aww... That's so sweet!" Amethyst says with a sincere and dopey smile.

"Whether the bathroom is safe or not doesn't matter." Garnet says. "What matters is that there could be more with her."

As Garnet finishes her thought, another bubble appears. Greg is inside it, and he looks sick.

"Ugh... She sure does catch on quick..." Greg looks around and sees the bathroom. "I wish she woulda told me that there was a bathroom at the other end... Would've made the trip alot dryer..."

"DAD!" Steven yells as he pops the bubble and hugs Greg.

"Hey, kiddo... We can catch up later." Greg says as he stands back up. "Peridot's at the corn fields outside of town, and she's not alone!"

Meanwhile at the corn fields, there are several gem shard clumps lying around. The remains of an impromptu Molotov are still burning, and Peridot is battered, bruised, and burnt Various broken items that used to be in Greg's van are strewn about...

"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" Peridot yells as she repeatedly smacks a gem mutant in the gem with downwards swings of a golf club.

Eventually the gem shatters and so does the gold club. Peridot runs back into the back of the van and finds what looks to be a gun of some kind. "A weapon!" Peridot fires it at the last mutant. A t-shirt flies out of the cannon and unfurls, covering the mutant's face. "Uhhhh..." Peridot jumps up front and out of the driver side window of the van. The t-shirt wearing gem mutant follows and gets stuck in the window. Peridot bashes it in the covered face with a rock and it poofs.

"Well... That went better than expected..." Peridot says as she turn around to leave, only to bump into another mutant. "... Why me?" Peridot groans.

The mutant swings hard with its left arm and sends Peridot skidding across the floor. She guts up just in time to roll out of the way of another swing. Peridot runs to the van and crawls under it. The mutant follows, and Peridot escapes from under the front of the van. The mutant chases after Peridot as she runs around the van, and under the van, and out from under the van. This goes on for a decent amount of time before Peridot dives under the van one final time. When she escapes from the underneath the van, she turns around to face the mutant. The mutant makes it part way out from under the van when the engine block falls out on it. It lets out a shriek of agony and surprise. As it poofs, Peridot opens her left hand and smiles with disturbing satisfaction as the bolts to the engine block fall to the ground.

Peridot begins to laugh but stops when she sees a tiny mutant. It looks like a hand with googly eyes and a tiny little sideways mouth attached. Peridot goes to step on the thing when it suddenly darts towards a nearby clump of shards and downs it in a gulp. In a display of distorted light, it grows and changes shape. "That's not good." Peridot says as she looks for a weapon. When she finally finds a fire extinguisher, the gem mutant had already devoured the other sharp clumps. She tries to beat the mutant to the last clump, the one from the mutant crushed by the engine block. The mutant opens its mouth and shoots out a tongue with a tiny little mouth at the clump. It eats it moments before Peridot is there to grab it.

The mutant glows and changes shape again becoming a multicolored monstrosity that looks closer to any real gem than any gem mutant had before. Its head had two big, serpentine eyes and a sideways mouth. Its standing on all four's like spiderman climbing a wall. It looks at Peridot and lets out a high pitched shrill as spines on its back stand on end. Peridot just looks unimpressed and sprays it in the face with the fire extinguisher.

The mutant shrieks in agony as it tries to clean the gunk out of its eyes. Peridot goes to swing the fire extinguisher down onto its skull, but the monster reaches towards her. Its arm stretches and grabs Peridot by her shirt. As the startled Peridot gets lifted into the air, she drops the fire extinguisher.

The mutant glares at Peridot and opens its mouth sending its tounge out towards Peridot's gem... It harmlessly bounces off her visor with a thunk. Peridot doesn't look very frightened anymore. It tries again harmlessly another two or three times. "Is that the best you got, dirt bomb!" Peridot gloats followed by her signature laugh.

Her laugh gets cut off early as the mutant swats Peridot's visor off and stomps on it, breaking it into tiny pieces. When the mutant returns his attention to Peridot again, she had already made another visor. "I can do this all day." Peridot says with a smirk.

The mutant opens its sideways mouth and the tongue's mouth shifts into a drill head and begins to spin. Peridot looks on in terror as the spinning drill careens towards her gem, and her visor shatters. She expected the drill head to crack her gem on impact, but instead it molded around it like play-dough. Peridot could feel her strength leaving her. The monster was feeding on her, draining the strength from her gem. She tried to fight back. She tried to scream. Nothing came of it.

 _"This is it."_ Peridot thought as her body went limp. _"I'm going to die."_ As she lie there in its grasp, she heard screams in her head. Screams of agony and despair. Screams of the gem shards that compose this abomination. Screams that reached into the very fiber of her being. At this exact moment, she realized just how cruel these fusion experiments were.

But off in the distance, Peridot could hear other screams. Someone was calling out to her. She opened her eyes. Everything was fuzzy. As it all came into focus she saw Steven looking down at her, her head resting on his lap. She could see Garnet fighting the gem mutant, and it was matching her blow for blow. She could see another gem standing ontop of Greg's van... Lapis? No. This gem was too pale and had two too many arms. She had a bow draw and an arrow ready. When this mystery gem cleared her troat, Garnet uppercut the mutant into the air. This gem fired her arrow at the monster. In transit the arrow split into hundreds of other arrows, and the mutnat was reduced to instantly bubbled chunks.

"Steven..." Peridot weakly breathes.

"Yeah, Peridot?" Steven asks full of concern.

"What is that thing you do every time the sun sets?"

"Uhm... Sleep?" Steven says with tears in his eyes.

"Yeah... That... I'm going to do that now..." Peridot says as everything goes black.

An undisclosed amount of time later...

Peridot's gem flickers on Steven's bed. The gem stops flickering, like a lightbulb that had just burnt out. After a few seconds of silence, the gem flares back up and Peridot slowly reforms and lands flat on Steven's bed. She didn't want to move, but she slowly sat up anyway. The gems and Greg were running up to the bed, and Steven is already there sitting next to her.

"Uhhh... Steven..." Peridot says as she slowly sits up. Everything felt numb. "Everyone..."

Peridot couldn't help but smile. Somebody had come for her. She wasn't all alone.

"Peridot..." Garnet begins. "Greg explained everything. I'm so-"

Peridot cuts her off with a cough as she clears her throat. "Garnet." Peridot breathes deeply and slowly exhales. "Thank you. For showing that to me."

Peridot holds out her hand for a handshake. "Wuh!?" Peridot exasperates as Garnet grabs her hand and pulls her in for a hug.

"Group hug!" Steven yells.

Everyone joins in on the group hug. Peridot is sandwiched somewhere inside this giant ball of Steven's family hug. Then Lion jumps on them all. Peridot's twitching leg is the only part of her visible in this giant mess.

Off in the kitchen, in the garbage, is Lapis's mirror. Broken in half a dozen pieces.

((Wow. Another long one, but I for the life of me couldn't figure out where to split it up... So I kept it as one bigger chapter. I have a theory as to what Peridot's natural weapon is, but I didn't want to use it as much as I wanted to imagine how Peridot would use everything around her. I had this one plan of having Peridot use some tin foil, a golf club, and the car battery to make an impromptu gem destabalizer... But the engine block and fire extinguisher made me giggle...

And this wraps up Friday and goes into Saturday Morning... Which is why I titled this one Saturday Morning.

Looks like a good place to wrap this fiction up though... NOPE! We've still got the rest of Saturday and Sunday to go through! But where can we go from here folks? I'll give you all a hint via cipher... No clue because its not a simple Cesar Cipher. This time I'm going with the vigenere cipher. The key phrase is "clod"

NLDLU ))


	9. Saturday Afternoon Evening

"Uh... Guys." Steven says with concern as he looks through a massive hole in the hull of the drill they were currently driving. "It's catching up!"

The drill had been completed earlier this morning after the group hug that had almost crushed Peridot. They were in the middle of testing it when they had accidentally drilled their way into an underground chamber where a giant worm monster had lain dormant. Just their luck that they had not only accidentally woken it up, but it had taken a nice bite out of their ship as well.

"Can't this thing go any faster!?" Amethyst yells from the back.

"SHUT UP!" Pearl and Peridot both yell from the front of the ship. Pearl is driving, and Peridot is in a booster seat looking contraption monitoring several different screens and running continuous diagnostics.

"I've had enough of this." Garnet says as she stands up. "Amethyst. Lets go."

Amethyst nods and stands up. The two of them head for the hole in the ship.

"If you two want to go out there and compromise the integrity of the tunnel go right ahead! But don't blame me when you get crushed by 68 metric tons of dirt!" Peridot yells over the roaring of the giant worm.

Garnet and Amethyst both sit back down... After awhile, the worm is about to finally catch the Gem Drill when suddenly the drill breaks through the earth and finds daylight. As soon as the dirt was out of the way, Peridot presses the big red button and the boost thrusters kick in. The Gem Drill goes airborne, and the worm monster sticks its head out of the hole after it.

Garnet and Amethyst nod to each other and jump out of the hole in the hull, holding hands. In the air, they glow and merge into one. A now free falling Sugilite plows into the worm monster giant fists first and crushes its head like a grape. The body of the worm explodes in a violent poof that sends tremors throughout the ocean. The Gem Drill lands with a thud on a small island near The Galaxy Warp. Sugilite defuses, and Amethyst bubbles the worm's gem.

"Well, that went well." Pearl says with a grin and looks over towards Peridot who was lying sprawled out and dazed.

"Ugh... Maybe I should've just stayed back..." Peridot says weakly.

Not even 24 hours ago, Peridot had almost died at the hands of an energy draining gem mutant. She had taken a considerable amount of damage, and her gem was almost entirely drained of energy. She used most of what she had let to regenerate, and it will take a long time to fully recover from that. She doesn't even have enough energy to spare to even make a bubble, let alone regenerate again if something were to happen.

"You're the one who insisted on coming along." Pearl complained. "So don't you dare start with that!" Amethyst and Garnet snicker at the two bickering nerds.

"Shouldn't we be worried about the earthquake we just caused?" Steven asks. "I mean... Those are never good, right?"

"Don't worry, Steven." Garnet said as she pats him on the head. "There's nothing around here for miles. Nothing's disturbed. Now lets get this drill back and fix her up."

The gems all get back in the battle worn drill and make another hole in the ground heading back to Beach City.

Meanwhile, Unbeknownst to them, the tremor had dislodged Peridot's limb enhancers from their resting place and they fall further into the inky blackness of the ocean.

At the bottom of the ocean, at the foot of The Galaxy Warp, Malachite lay prisoner. Jasper and Lapis locked in an eternal mental battle of tug of war. With every passing day it gets harder and harder for Lapis to keep control of the fusion, and with each passing day Lapis and Jasper's hate for each other makes Malachite stronger.

Malachite's facial expression of struggle turns to shock as Peridot's limb enhancers float down past her face and rest infront of her front pair of arm-feet.

"PeRiDoT!?" The voices yell in surprise.

"WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT!" The predominantly Jasper voice says with a hint of smirk. "THEY KILLED PERIDOT."

"No..." The predominantly Lapis voice states in disbelief. "They wouldn't... Steven wouldn't let them!"

"LOOKS LIKE THE BRAT DID. WHO KNOWS?" Jasper says egging Lapis on. "MAYBE HE'S THE ONE WHO DID HER IN?"

"Steven would never-"

"NEVER WHAT LAPIS? KILL? DID YOU EVER SEE YOURSELF DOING THIS?" Jasper says in regards to the fusion.

Lapis stays silent.

"PERIDOT WAS ONLY DOING HER JOB. NOW SHE'S DEAD. THE CRSYTAL GEMS, THAT BRAT INCLUDED, KILLED HER!"

Lapis stays silent, Malachite's one pair of eyes are filled with grief, the other filled with a sadistic glee.

"WE BOTH KNOW HOW DEFENSELESS PERIDOT IS. SHE COULD NEVER DO ANYTHING BY HERSELF. IF YOU WERE THERE, YOU COULD'VE SAVED HER! IT'S YOUR FAULT SHE'S DEAD!"

"NO!" Lapis yells, her concentration shattered.

Inside Malachite's head, Jasper laughs as she forcefully takes complete control of the fusion. Jasper's laugh reverberates through Malachite's mouth as the fusion is freed from its shackles and rockets towards Beech City...

Later that evening, the drill had been fully repaired and armed with one of the laser light cannons incase something like the worm were to happen again. AAA had finally managed to tow Greg's van back into town, and Pearl had set up a time after the Cluster was destroyed to fix it. Everything was falling into place, so Peridot was given the rest of the day off... Well ordered to take a rest. Having a ' _voluntary period of reprieve_ ' was a new concept to Peridot, so Steven decided to take her into town.

"Its insulting!" Peridot complains.

"I think its adorable!" Steven says with a smile. "It shows she cares!"

"Putting an adhesive on the back of the drill that reads 'baby on board' is NOT a compliment!" Peridot was mad about Amethyst's joke.

The two walk up to the fry shop, and Ronaldo is out front sweeping.

"Hey, Ronaldo!" Steven yells with a wave.

"Hey Stev- OH MY GOD!" Ronaldo notices Peridot and runs off screaming. "PEEDEE! GET MY CAMERA! STEVEN HAS FINALLY GIVEN BIRTH! I HAVE TO PUT THIS ON MY BLOG!"

"What is this birth?" Peridot asks Steven with confusion.

"Uh... Well... That's something you'll have to ask my dad." Steven says to dodge the subject.

Peridot is confused, but she groans it off as some kind of insult targeted at her by the bigger fry child.

Steven orders his usual fry bits and strikes up casual conversation with Peridot while strolling down the boardwalk.

"So, Peridot." Steven says. "I've been meaning to ask you... Are you friends with Lapis?"

"Why would you like to know?" Peridot asks defensively.

"Oh, come on!" Steven pleads, giving Peridot the puppy dog pout. "Tell me!"

"Fine. I don't see how this information is relevent to you, but I'll disclose." Peridot says. "Lazulli was my informant. How that came about is frankly none of your business. As to whether we had become friends after her assignment..." Peridot stops and thinks back about the long days planning the trip to Earth and the even longer days of being cooped up in a ship with Jasper. She smiles. "I would like to think that we were."

Steven grins all starry eyed.

Peridot continues. "She had this annoying habit of refusing to answer a question until I had answered one of hers. I begrudgingly relented and answered her questions, so I could get the information I needed for my mission. Before I knew it, I was looking forward to our conversations. We talked about off the record details such as my life, her imprisonment, and how you had fixed her gem. She even somehow convinced me to violate chain of command and _prank_ Jasper."

"Prank?" Steven asks with even bigger starry eyes.

"Small things." Peridot explains. "Like hiding chalk on Jasper's chair to color her butt red. Or the hiding of Jasper's cape... It all stopped when Jasper started disciplining us though."

"Discipline?" Steven asks.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Peridot quickly dismisses the conversation. "But yes. Lazulli and I got along."

"Then... Why did you put her in jail?" Steven asked.

"I didn't do anything!" Peridot says defensively. "Jasper did! Though she was mad at me for firing the main cannon at you... But she couldn't do anything about it from in the cell."

Peridot then stops in her tracks and gets serious. "I made alot of mistakes, didn't I?"

"Hey now. Don't beat yourself up, Dot." Steven says reasurringly. "Everybody makes mistakes. What you do after making them is what matters. You feel bad, then just try to make things right from this point forward."

Peridot smiles. "Make things right..." Then there's a large tremor followed by an enraged scream that shatters the windows along the board walk. Malachite's head pops out of the ocean off the shore of Beach City and continues the roar as a tidal wave crashes into the shore and destroys the peer.

"WHAT IN THE WORLD!?" Peridot screams.

"Lapis!" Steven yells out in surprise.

"Lapis?" Peridot looks at Malachite, sees the gem nose. She then looks back at Steven. Then back at Malachite. Then back at Steven. "THE FRACK, STEVEN!?"

((Wow... Another long one... Oh well...

Things seem to be getting better for little Peridot. Getting worse for poor NLDLU (Lapis) though. I was gonna wait a day or so to write this, but the thoughts had already coalesced in my head into a full chapter. It didn't feel right to just let it sit in there until later in the week. Hope you guys enjoy the update!))


	10. Saturday Night (Part 1)

"You see, after we destroyed your shi-" Steven began but was cut off by Peridot.

"You can, and will, fill me in later, Steven!" Peridot exasperates. "But first, we have to stop that." Peridot points at the now fully visible Malachite. Peridot looks up at the monstrosity with fear and recoils her hand. "Uhhh..."

"Peridot. It's ok if you're scared." Steven reasurringly says as he pats her on the head. "Me and the Crystal Gems have been doing this a lot longer than you. Just find a place to hide, and I'll find you later." Steven grins and runs off towards the beach.

"STEVEN!" Peridot yells. She wants to follow, but her fear is holding her back. This thing was just out of her league. She could do nothing but stand there, knees shaking as Steven ran off to, in her opinion, his certain doom.

Meanwhile, at the beach, Malachite had fully resurfaced near the temple only to get punched in the face by a green fist. It sent Malachite reeling back in surprise. Standing before her was Alexandrite.

"JUST THE GEMS I WAS LOOKING FOR!" Malachite yells as water rises up behind her, forming a giant fist. The water fist comes crashing down towards Aelxandrite.

Alexandrite nimbly jumps out of the way of the water fist. As a second one comes barrelling towards her, she summons a war hammer and swings through it reducing it to a mere puddle. Alexandrite spins with the swing, and as she does, the two hands that make up the hammer head interlock their fingers, and the handle segments into hundreds on chain links. As Alexandrite completes the spin, the giant wrecking ball like flail rockets towards Malachite, who simply blocks it by summoning a helmet.

Malachite grabs into the flail and pulls Alexandrite towards her. Headbutt meets gauntlet punch, and the generated force at the center sends a shock wave throughout Beach City and forces the tide back into the ocean. Malachite uppercuts Alexandrite into the air, where Alexandrite then summons six spears and points them all at Malachite.

With a scream, Alexandrite unleases a volley of laser blasts from all of the spears down onto Malachite. Malachite puts her arms up to block. The tide comes back in. She took the brunt of the attack with a scream of pain and frustration. The impact of the blasts send a tremor of energy through Beach City.

Meanwhile, at Beach City, Peridot is standing on the boardwalk. She doesn't know what to do. The humans are all running around in terror. The majority of them are fleeing.

"Onion!? Onion!? WHERE ARE YOU!?" An older human woman yells as she's frantically combing the boradwalk. Peridot barely pays it any mind.

"This. This is beyond me!" Peridot says to herself as she sees the chaos and the two titans duking it out on the shore. "I... I'm just a Peridot. I shouldn't be in this situation! I should be... Home..." Suddenly all of these memories begin rushing into Peridot's head. Not memories of Homeworld but rather memories of Earth. She remembered her frustration when Steven had called her "cute." She remembered how terrifying thunder was and how Steven had made the fear go away. She remembered facing Pearl in the robot competition and Amethyst's laugh. She even remembered her conversation with Greg and that painful group hug with Garnet at the center. These memories brought a strange feeling to her body. It started in her gut and then spread up to her chest. She never had a feeling like this, but it felt good... Like the feelings she felt between Ruby and Sapphire only... Different.

"ONION!" the loud screech had stirred Peridot from her thoughts. A tremor from the fight had knocked the big doughnut from atop of the Big Doughnut loose, and it had begun to fall. Underneath it was a strangely shaped human child. Perdiot didn't think, only acted. Mere moments before the child was crushed by the giant doughnut, Peridot had tackled the kid out of the way.

When the dust had settled, Peridot was holding this oddly terrifying creature in her arms. It just looked up at her, and shivers ran down her spine. Luckily the older woman had come to retrieve this... Human?

"Oh my onion!" The woman says as she grabs the child and hugs it tightly. "Thank you!" The woman says in gratitude. "Thank you!" She hugs Peridot and runs off with Onion to find safety.

Peridot looks at the scene of what had transpired and looked down at her own hands. A few weeks ago, Peridot would never have considered putting her own life in danger, let alone to do it for a random human. Something had changed in Peridot, and she had just now realized it.

Peridot groans. "Ugh... These Crystal Gems are going to be the death of me!" She runs towards the closest vehicle she can find, Mayor Dewey's election car.

Yet again at the Beach!

When the dust clears, Alexandrite lands and Malachite is lying in the tide face down and unmoving. Alexandrite stands over Malachite and raises her top fists and gauntlets form. The she clasps her top hands together and the gauntlets begin to grow until they dwarf Malacite in size. Alaexandrite lets out a roar as she slams the gauntlets down towards Malachite.

"STOOOOOOOOP!" Steven yells as he approaches the fight, getting off Lion's back. Alexandrite stops mid swing, just inches above Malachite's body. "Gems shouldn't be fighting! There's gotta be a better way to solve this!"

"Steven..." Alexandrite says. It looks like she's about to consider the option. "... I'm sorry." She raises her gauntlets to swing down again, only to be caught in a giant bubble of water. The gauntlets shattering under the pressure.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Malachite roars as she gets back up. "YOU THINK THAT WAS ALL I HAD!?" Malachite applies pressure to the gems on Alexandrite's body. "SINCE THE WAR, I'VE BEEN OUT FIGHTING. YOU'VE BEEN BABY SITTING! YOU'VE GONE WEAK AND LOST YOUR EDGE!" Malachite laughs with a sadistic tone that makes Steven cringe. "I'M GOING TO ENJOY THIS!"

With a clench of her fist, the water pressure begins to crush the fusion. Alexandrite begins to crack apart.

"NO!" Steven yells as he runs towards Alexandrite, only to be blasted with water that send him and Lion flying across the Beach. "La... pis..."

"STEV... VEN!" Yells Alexandrite before there is a sickening crack, and she splits apart. Ruby, Sapphire, Pearl, and Amethyst are all now floating inside this bubble.

"NOW, I'LL KILL YOU ALL!" Malachite yells triumphantly. "FIRST WITH YOU TRA-"

Malachite gets cut off mid sentence by the repeated phrase "Mayor Dewey! Mayor Dewey!" The Dewey Mobile stops on the shore and Peridot jumps out of the passenger side. "WAIT!" Peridot yells. Inside the Dewey Mobile, Mayor Dewey is pale-faced terrified, and his hands are taped to the steering wheel.

"PeRiDoT!?" Malachite's voice says in a confused Jasper tone and a relieved Lapis tone. The bubble constructs puddles and the gems fall to the ground with a thud.

"Jasper? Laspis?... Jaspis?" Peridot looks confused. "Uhm... What do I call you?"

"WE ARE MALACHITE!" Jasper yells as Lapis gets forced back into submission.

"Eh... Good for you?" Peridot says, desperately trying to hide her terror. She had a plan, but she needed to stay calm to get it to work. "Just _where_ have **you** been anyway!?"

"I'VE BEEN STUCK UNDER THIS MISERABLE WORLD'S OCEAN FOR WEEKS! AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO TALK TO ME LIKE THAT!?" Jasper was getting angry.

"While you've been hiding all this time I-"

"I WASN'T HIDING!" Malachite yells interrupting Peridot, raising a hand to get ready to crush her.

"AS I WAS SAYING!" Peridot angrily yells, but still secretly terrified. "I have made some progress on the Cluster. It really is quite fascinating." _"Come on... Take the bait!"_

Malachite reaches down and picks up Peridot, and brings Peridot right up to her face. "WORK! YOU'RE DIRECT SUPERIOR HAS BEEN TRAPPED AND ALL YOU COULD THINK ABOUT WAS YOUR LITTLE PROJECT!?"

 _"She took the bait."_ Peridot thought with a grin. "Yeah. And guess what?" Peridot asks.

"WHAT?" Malachite yells full of rage, almost crushing Peridot then and there.

Peridot wriggles a hand free and brings it up to her mouth "PFFFBT!" Peridot makes a fart noise in her hand.

"WHAT!?" Malachite yells. The Jasper voice of Malachite starts the scream in fury as the Lapis voice of Malachite starts laughing uncontrollably. As the two voices begin to diverge in emotions, the fusion begins to go unstable. In a flash of light, Lapis, Jasper, and Peridot fall to the beach.

Malachite has come undone.

((Sorry for the long wait between chapters. Family life, 4 hour car drives, and gas station churros got the better of me this weekend... But on the topic of this chapter... GIANT WOMAN FIGHT! Heck yeah! I really wanna see some Godzilla level combat in the Steven Universe main canon.

Also, Saturday Night's Alright for a fight!

The idea of Peridot disabling the fusion via fart noise had been in my mind for a few months now. I figured that it would be a brick joke of sorts if that's what breaks the fusion. I was initially going to have Steven do the fart noise but I felt it would suit Peridot's growth better. Simply because I have this head canon that Lapis made fart noises and it pissed Jasper off to no end and Peridot would simply dismiss it as juvenile. Thus, it would have more of an impact of Malachite if Peridot had done it over Steven... Because Steven is already goofy. Peridot being goofy is far more unpredictable and thus a funnier fart joke.))


	11. Saturday Night (Part 2)

Peridot sits up and spits up some sand. She wished she hadn't opened her mouth, but that happens when you fall through the air screaming. Not only was the taste of sand disgusting but the grains are annoying, and you never seem to be able to get it all out.

Peridot stands up and begins to run towards the immobile blue gem, Lapis Lazulli. Before Peridot can get to her, Peridot is startled by an angry voice.

"You!" Jasper yells as she slowly stands. Peridot eeps. "Why did you get in my way!?"

"In your way!?" Peridot retorts in defiance. She points accusingly at Jasper. "If anything you were in my way!"

"What are you talking about!?" Jasper yells in confusion as she approaches Peridot.

"I'm saying," Peridot begins as she steps back defensively, "that I can't successfully destroy the Cluster and betray Homeworld if you shatter my co-conspirators!"

Jasper is taken aback, but her shock turns to anger as she punts Peridot like a football.

"Peridot!" Steven yells as he struggles to get up on his two feet.

"You know... It's so easy getting you worked up, Jasper." Peridot says with a smirk as she wipes sand and spit off her chin. "You can't even keep a fusion under control." Peridot laughs, taunting Jasper.

"Shut up, brat!" Jasper yells as she runs up and kicks Peridot again.

She would've used her spin dash, but she was running on fumes after the fusion came undone. Peridot gets her hands up in time to block, but it offered little support, and she was sent flying again.

"Brat?" Peridot states as she weakly begins to get up on wobbly legs. "I think you mean _traitor_. While you were off playing games with Lazulli, I was plotting to destroy the Cluster, designing a drill to get me there, and working with the Crystal Gems the whole time!" Peridot laughs.

"Why? Why are you telling me this?" Jasper asks full of confusion. "It doesn't make you look tough! It makes you look pathetic!"

"Why?" Peridot states still laughing. "Because I'm distracting you, Clod!"

Jasper turns around to see what was behind her... There was nothing. As Jasper was looking away, Peridot grabbed a handful of Jasper's hair and slides under her legs. With a sharp tug, Peridot pulled Jasper's head down and under her legs, flipping Jasper. She landed on her gut with a thud. Jasper looked up and was about to say something when Peridot jumped on her head. She dug Jasper's face into the sand and twisted her feet around to make sure Jasper got a nice mouth full of sand.

Jasper yells in frustration as she jumps back and and sends Peridot tumbling along the beach.

"Worth it!" Peridot yells as the furious Jasper begins chasing Peridot around the beach, Peridot laughing at Jasper the whole time.

Truth be told, Peridot was terrified, but she was also enjoying this. Jasper had been nothing but a bully to her and Lapis. The bad attitude, the constant ordering around, the physical abuse, all of it. Jasper was now being lead around the beach like an angry little sheep. Peridot felt like she was in control of the situation, and of Jasper. She got great satisfaction out of that.

"Enough of these stupid games!" Jasper yells as she forced up enough energy for a spin dash.

She plowed right into Peridot and sent her crashing into the base of the cliff-side that the temple was built into. When the dust settled, Peridot was hanging limp, her head firmly in Jasper's giant hand.

"I'm going to enjoy this!" Jasper says as she slowly begins to squeeze Peridot's head. Peridot lets out a scream as her visor begins to crack. "Any last words, runt!?"

Peridot was too weak to move, let alone fight back. She could feel the pressure on her gem. It was going to crack, she knew it. Jasper was going to shatter her, and she was going to die. She had distracted Jasper as long as she could, and it was a long time considering that Jasper is a fully trained Homeworld soldier, and she was just an energy drained Peridot. To Peridot, this was an accomplishment. This thought made Peridot smile. Jasper's grip tightened, and Peridot's body contorts as her gem cracks.

"I'm gonna wipe that smug grin off your face, you little -" Jasper couldn't finish off that sentence. She gasped in pain and looked at the pink blade that had stopped mere inches from Peridot's chest. She followed the blade down to the exit wound it had made through her torso. Jasper looked behind her in shock and terror to see Steven and Lapis Lazulli both panting heavily and both holding onto the handle of the blade that had just sealed her fate.

Jasper poofs.

Peridot lands on the sand with a thud, her body broken and contorted... Gem cracking even further.

"PERIDOT!" Yelled five concerned voices.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl finally make it back to the scene.

"STAY BACK!" Lapis yells at the gems threateningly.

The gems stop in their tracks. Nobody is in any real shape to fight right now. As Lapis stares the Crystal Gems down, a flash of light emanates from Peridot's Gem as it slowly heals. Steven helps Peridot back to her feet, his hand still wet with saliva.

"Thank you, Steven." Peridot weakly says. She is standing, but only because of Steven supporting her. She's not even trying to stand on her own, she knows she can't. "Lapis... Its ok. I'm with them..."

Lapis was taken aback. She has a wide array of emotions going on right now. Happy to see Peridot alive and to see Steven again. Confused as to why Peridot would say such a thing. Angry at the Crystal Gems. And really, really tired.

Lapis finally manages to be able to speak again. "Explain yourself, Peridot."

"Tomorrow." Steven says as he grabs Lapis by the hand and begins to help the weak Peridot and exhausted Lapis Lazulli back to his house. "I think we all need a good night's rest first."

Pearl looks like she's about to say something, but Steven cuts her off.

"All of us." Steven says with authority. Everyone but Garnet walks into the temple. She stops and picks up Jasper's gem. She thinks about crushing it for a moment but instead decides to just bubble it. She walks into the house.

((I imagined yackety sax and three stooges sound effects when I had written up the fight of Jasper vs Peridot. I figured even with Jasper being totally exhausted, Peridot would still lose. I mean, come on. Jasper was on Earth the last time Homeworld was and we can easily assume that she's been in the military the whole time since then. And I think the only reason Garnet beat Jasper the second time around was because of Future Vision abuse. Also, Jasper is like the living embodiment of the WWE. So yeah... Peridot can't beat Jasper, and Peridot knows this... But she can easily outsmart her... Also distract Jasper, and we all know that Peridot can be very, very frustrating.

I'm really enjoying writing this and would like to take the time to thank you all for reading! Its been so much fun that I've decided that once A Long Weekend is over I plan to start writing up another work of fiction!))


	12. Sunday Morning

Overlooking the technological marvel that is Homeworld lies a giant palace, as magnificent as it is huge. At the center of the palace is the throne room. In the center of the floor is the insignia of the Diamond Authority, at the far end is a glowing throne shaped like a yellow diamond. Hundreds of subjects are bowing to the figure sitting on the throne, a figure of great wisdom and immense power They are all waiting for their ruler's command on what to do with Earth. The figure stands and raises her hands to address the audience. They wait with baited breath. The leader was wise. The leader was powerful. The leader was... Peridot in a cape... Peridot clears her throat as she's about to speak to her devout subject when all of a sudden, she gets poked in the side of the head. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly. She turns her head to see Lapis, wearing a dopey grin and poking Peridot repeatedly.

With a groan Peridot wakes up. Steven had convinced her and Lapis to participate in the human ritual known as a "slumber party." While sleep had no purpose for a gem, Peridot had to admit... It felt good. Except for the part waking up groggy. When her vision came into focus, she saw Lapis sitting next to her, poking her until she woke up.

"Uh... Laz-" Peridot began groggily.

"I'm still mad at you." Lapis says in a curt whisper.

"Because I took the depressed rabbit sleeping companion?" Peridot asks, her brain still not fully awake.

"Ye- No!" Lapis says with a huff before she goes back to whispering. "For what you did on the mission."

"Oh... Firing the laser at Steven?" Peridot whispers as if for clarification.

"Yes. That." Lapis responds.

Peridot groans as she rubs her sleepy eyes. "Lazulli. This is getting old."

"Excuse me!?" Lapis says in an almost yell. She covers her mouth as Steven turns in his sleep.

"The Earthones were mad because they thought I tried to destroy their planet. The Crystal Gems were mad because they thought I was trying to reactivate the Kindergarten. And now you're made because I fired a particle cannon at Steven. Everyone is mad at me for things they thought were so terrible, while I was just following orders."

"So you're not sorry for shooting at Steven?" Lapis asks sadly.

"No." Peridot says honestly. "We warned them, but they didn't listen to the transmission."

Lapis turns away from Peridot defeated. She whispers something under her breath that nobody can hear.

"Uhh... I think I should clarify my standing." Peridot says as she realizes that she may have not said exactly what she had meant to. Lapis doesn't turn an inch. "Look, Lapis." Peridot continues. "I know that my past actions have been... Unsatisfactory... I followed orders when I shouldn't have, and others paid for it. But meeting Steven has changed everything for me... He saved me from my life, and he saved me from myself. So am I sad that I tried to kill Steven? No. Would I go back and change my actions? No. Why? Because my actions lead me here, and for once in my life... I'm happy."

Peridot took her Sad Bunny sleeping companion and set it next to Lapis. She then curled back up under her blanket and went back to bed. Maybe she could have that same dream again... Grand Leader Peridot, Sovereign Ruler of Everything! Peridot felt a small distortion in her mattress as Lapis laid down next to her and stared at the ceiling. Peridot tried to ignore her presence. Meanwhile, a pretending to be asleep Steven is grinning ear to ear at what he had just heard.

Later that morning... Peridot gets disturbed from her sleep as she feels movement all around her. She never did get to have that dream again.

"Ugh..." Peridot says as she sits up... Only to be thwacked with a pillow and sent right back down.

"Oh... Sorry, Peridot." A young human girl says with an apologetic grin.

"Steven." Peridot says as she gets up. Steven stops mid-swing, allowing Lapis to get a cheap pillow shot on Steven's face. "Who is this human who assaulted me?"

"Right!" Steven says as he straightens his shirt. "Peridot, this is Connie. Connie, this is Peridot."

"Hello." Connie says as she holds a hand out for a shake.

"Greetings, Connie." Peridot says as she accepts the handshake. "So, where are the others?"

"Garnet and Amethyst went out on a mission, and Pearl went to make some last minute adjustments to the drill." Steven explains.

Peridot goes towards the door.

"Oh no you don't!" Lapis says as she hits Peridot with a pillow. "You're not going anywhere! You said that you'd keep an eye on me! Keep me out of trouble!"

"When did I agree to that!?" Peridot asks in defiance.

"About an hour ago." Steven said. "You talk in your sleep."

"You said some pretty juicy things!" Connie says with a devious smirk.

"I... What did I say!?" Peridot is embarrassed.

"We'll tell you when you're older." Lapis says with a grin. "But in the meantime..." She hits Peridot with a pillow.

Peridot grins. "If thats how its going to be, Lazulli." Peridot picks up a pillow. "Prepare to die!"

The pillow fight continues, but now its a fatal four way for the Universe Pillow Fighting Championship! The pillow fight quickly escalates until Lapis uses her water wings. She shifts them to an extra pair of arms and starts wielding four pillows at once. Connie, Steven, and Peridot are quickly defeated.

After the pillow fight Steven, Connie, Lapis, and Peridot go out to get breakfast. Steven and Connie go into the Big Doughtnut, but Lapis and Peridot stay out on the board walk. Lapis walks over towards the edge of the boardwalk and sits down. Peridot joins her.

"What do we do now?" Lapis asks Peridot.

"Why are you asking me? Aren't you the _wise older gem_?" Peridot asks with air quotes.

"You've grown enough since we last met... Well, emotionally. Physically, you shrank." Lapis says with a taunting laugh and rubs the top of Peridot's head.

"HEY!" Peridot yells brushing Lapis's hand away and getting angry.

"There's the Peri I remember!" Lapis grins, and Peridot just groans.

After a moment of silence Peridot speaks up. "Neither of us can go back now."

Lapis silently agrees. After a few more moments of silent staring out at the ocean, Lapis begins to talk. "I guess going home was just a fool's dream."

"Why don't we just stay here?" Peridot says in a matter of fact tone.

"What!? With the Crystal Gems!?" Lapis gets all defensive. "You know what they did to me! They're probably going to do the same to you!"

"They were..." Peridot sadly stated. Lapis just looks at Peridot with pity and confusion. "I found the mirror... It was in Steven's disposal basket. They were planning to imprison me, but they changed their minds. If they can change their opinions about me, then it'll be easy for them to change about you."

Lapis can't help but smile. "That would be nice." Her smile fades. "But I don't think that I can forgive them."

"But they're idiots." Peridot says. Lapis just looks confused at Peridot. "They don't think. They just do. They jump at the first solution that comes to mind and carry it through to the end."

Lapis sighs. "If you're trying to defend them you're not doing a very good job."

"I'm not." Peridot explains.

"Then what are you trying to do?" Lapis says all confused. "Are you trying to confuse me? Make me feel pity? Understanding? What?"

"I'm just talking." Peridot says. "Talking is always helpful. If you explain what's in your mind and in your heart, everything'll work out... Atleast, that's what Dad told me, and he was right."

"Hm... You may just be onto something." Lapis says with a weak smile.

The two of them get up to walk back towards the Big Doughnut, but Steven and Connie are already behind them, eyes full of tears and stars and smiling like doofuses.

"Two tragic heroines! United by tragic tales that are as similar as they are different! Taking comfort in each other's sorrow and redemption! Its just like my fanfiction!" Connie says fangirling over the sincere moment.

"Gah!" Peridot recoils back as Connie gets closer. "We are not heroines or these fanfictions you speak of! Now... Back away... You're making me incredibly uncomfortable."

Connie grins and begins chasing after Peridot. "Come here Dot!"

Peridot screams, while running away. "Steven! Control your Connie!"

The two run in circles on the beach as Lapis and Steven joyfully laugh at Peridot's expense.

Meanwhile on another part of the beach... Mayor Dewey is still taped to the steering wheel of his election mobile, and it is stuck in the sand. "Someone, anyone? Help..." Onion walks by, licking an ice cream cone. "Oh, finally! Look, could you please-" Onion throws his ice cream, hitting Mayor Dewey in the face and walks off. Mayor Dewey lets out a defeated groan and smacks his head against the steering wheel. "I have to use the little Mayor's Room..."

((So, I don't know about you guys but Sunday morning is my lazy time. Its when I veg out and contemplate the grand questions of life. "Is this real life?" "Or is this just fantasy?" Music references aside. This chapter was fun to write. The initial idea was for Peridot to wake up and see Connie there with a DVD of Evangelion to watch while the two beach summer fun buddies went off to cause havoc on the boardwalk. But then I realized that Steven splitting the group up didn't seem to fit right... And making Peridot watch Evangelion after how this weekend has gone would just be mean.

Then this chapter just kinda happened. Almost like it wrote itself. Creepy.))


	13. Sunday Noon

After doughnuts and an excursion to the beach, Connie, Steven, Peridot, and Lapis all went to meet up with the Crystal Gems at the barn. Pearl added a last minute modification to the drill and wanted to present it to the group before departure.

"Alright, is everyone here?" Pearl asks as she looks around. She notices Lapis and frowns. "... Good."

Lapis notices the change in tone and glares. Peridot and Steven exchange concerned glances before Pearl continues.

"Last night I came up with a plan to destroy the Cluster that should prove to be-" Pearl was cut off.

"I thought we were just gonna drill it to pieces." Steven says disappointedly.

"Yeah!" Peridot says. "Why change the plan?"

"Garnet thought that just drilling into the Cluster was... inhumane." Pearl explains. "Also if shards of the Cluster manage to generate independent forms then we'd be surrounded in no time. So instead we're going to-"

"Ooh! Ooh!" Steven butts in again. "Are we gonna blast it with a light cannon!?"

"No." Pearl says with a sigh of frustration. "Firing a laser light cannon at an object of that size in the center of the Earth could cause an explosion large enough to generate geological instability." Steven looks confused. "Bad things will happen on the surface." Steven nods in understanding.

"Then what should we do then, Pearl?" Peridot asks, walking up to her. "We can't shoot it. We can't drill it. Are you gonna cry at it?"

Lapis laughs with a snort at the comment, and Peridot grins. Pearl groans.

"Not quite." Pearl says. "I propose acoustic resonance."

Peridot stops grinning and looks up at Pearl. "Pearl." Peridot begins. She reaches up and grabs Pearl by the face, pulling her down to eye level. "THAT'S BRILLIANT!" Peridot screams and begins to laugh.

Pearl pulls her head free from Peridot's grip and stands straight. She begins to fix her hair. "Thank you, Peridot." Pearl says with appreciation and confusion as to what had just happened. "Its nice having someone around who understands what I have to say."

"And for those of us who aren't dorks?" Lapis asks with a hint of irritation. Amethyst giggles. Lapis shoots a glare at Amethyst, and she stops giggling.

"It means," Pearl says with the tone of a teacher addressing a child, "that we're going to use sonic waves to assault the Cluster." Pearl uses her gem to make a hologram of a glass. "Everything has what's called a ' _resonance frequency_ ' or a frequency of vibration." The hologram shows a face that opens its mouth. Sound wave effects come out of the mouth, making the hologram glass vibrate. "Since we know that the Cluster is comprised of millions of gem shards forcibly fused by heat and pressure, we can deduce that all of the independant shard still maintain their original physical properties. We send out sonic blasts at various frequencies, causing the gems to vibrate and separate at the joints." The hologram glass shatters, and the hologram dissipates.

Lapis, Steven, and Amethyst all look confused.

Peridot face palms and groans. "Sound breaks Clod Monster."

"Oooooh!" Steven, Lapis, and Amethyst all say at once.

"I already built the device and tested it." Pearl said as she pointed over at a destroyed pile of green scrap. "It worked nicely."

"My escape pod!" Peridot yells. "Even now, you break my things!?"

Pearl confidently smirks at Peridot. Peridot groans but eventually drops the subject.

"So, we're just gonna go down to the Cluster and shoot sound at it?" Amethyst asks with confusion. "How is that supposed to work? Where do we even _go_?"

"I'll explain this one, Pearl." Peridot says. "The Cluster is in the center of the Earth, incubating in the high heat and pressure. But, as with all experiments, there is an observational facility overlooking the Cluster. Its a small atmosphere controlled chamber. Based on energy readings emanating from the center of the planet, it is still fully functional. We're going to use that as our guide beacon and our base of operations for the assault."

"Oh... Ok. That makes sense." Amethyst says with a grin.

"Now that all seven of us are here, can we go now?" Steven asks.

"WHAT!?" Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot, and Lapis all yell out at once.

"What?" Steven explains. "This thing could destroy the Earth. We need as much help as we can get."

"Steven." Pearl begins. "If your math is right, that means that you're including Lapis Lazulli, and Connie."

"So?" Steven asks.

Pearl inhales like she's about to give a long winded explanation as to why that is a very bad idea, but Garnet speaks before she can.

"They can come." Garnet says as she adjusts her visor.

Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot, and Lapis all look at Garnet confused. Connie squeals in joy and jumps up and down.

"Garnet! You've got to be joking!" Pearl exclaims.

" _You'll know when she's joking._ " Peridot says in a bad Garnet impersonation. Garnet either didn't hear it or just ignored it.

"You said so yourself that Connie is growing into a remarkable swordsman. She can handle it, and we need the help." Garnet explains. Pearl begrudgingly accepts the statement. "And you." Garnet says as she focuses her attention to Lapis. "Steven and Peridot both seem willing to vouch for you, and if we fail the Earth, and everything on it will die. I've seen your strength, and we will need all the help we can get. Will you help us? Just this once?"

Garnet extends her hand for a handshake.

"Just this once." Lapis says as she accepts the handshake. "For _my_ friends." After a moment of awkward silence and glaring, Lapis lets go of Garnet's hand and continues talking. "But when its over, the truce is done, and I'm gone."

"Lapis..." Steven and Peridot both say under their breath.

"Agreed" Garnet states.

Lapis storms off towards the barn. Steven, Peridot, and Connie go to follow but Garnet grabs both Connie and Steven.

"Hey!" Connie says.

"Whats the big idea?" Steven asks.

"Let Peridot handle this." Garnet says with a smile.

"Did you see something with in your future vision?" Connie asks with anticipation.

"No." Garnet says. "I just want to see what happens."

((As do we all Garnet. As do we all. XD

Well, I am atleast.

Not much to say about this chapter. I... Uhm... I made pot roast with potatoes and carrots in my slow cooker today. It came out delicious. A little too much garlic though. But my mom and grandma put garlic in just about everything to the point where I'm pretty sure if a vampire bit me or my brother, they'd just catch fire and die from our garlic-saturated blood.

This chapter is brought to you by in part by science, the letter Q, and by readers like you!))


	14. Sunday Afternoon

Lapis had stormed off into the barn, and Peridot had followed. The barn is poorly lit with only the natural light of the sun coming in through the main entrance. Peridot looks around for Lapis and sees her sitting in a dark corner near the remains of her robot, the mighty Peribot. They had recently harvested it for parts, a reasonable sacrifice to make for the completion of the drill.

"Go away." Lapis says with a mixture of anger and sadness. "I don't want to be bothered..."

"Bother you?" Peridot says as she quickly looks around for an excuse. "I came to uh... Do a maintenance check on my Peribot... Yeah." Peridot walks over to the broken machine. "I see that the Pearl has decided to harvest it for parts. These Crystal Clods are a menace." Peridot looks over towards Lapis who is still sitting in the corner hugging onto her legs.

"Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Peridot!" Lapis complains. "You make fun of the Pearl one minute and then you're praising her the next. What's the deal with that?"

"The deal?" Peridot asks confusedly. "... Oh! You mean the truce agreement!" Peridot begins to twirl a wrench around in her fingers. "You see. I agreed to assist the Crystal Gems in stopping the Cluster in exchange for... Well... Really all I got out of our initial truce was that if the Cluster gets stopped then it won't shatter me... Wow... I did not win out on that one." Peridot laughs half-heartedly.

"And then what? You just decided to become their pal!?" Lapis is mad. "You gonna just stay here with them when its all over!?"

Peridot was caught off guard by biting tone of the remark. The wrench falls out of her hand and lands on her foot. "Ow! Ow! Ow!" Peridot says as she hops on one foot, holding the other one. She falls on her but. She quickly gets up and composes herself. She coughs to clear her throat and begins to talk again. "Lazulli. We literally just went over this this morning. We can just stay here."

"Here!?" Lapis yells. "With them! That works for you! They tolerate you!"

"Tolerate?" Peridot asks. "I'd like to think tha-"

"That they like you!? Good for you, Peri!" Lapis cries, tears rolling down her face as she looks at Peridot. "You're all just one big group of Beach Summer Fun Buddies! Meanwhile... I'm here... Alone... Just like in the mirror..."

"Lapis..." Peridot sits down next to her. "Look. I have no idea what you've gone through with Jasper, but I know what its like to be alone." Peridot sighs. "Homeworld, I had nobody. Earth, I had nobody... It makes you feel small... Insignificant. But you can change that."

"How can I do that? Do what you said and talk to them!?"

"YES!" Peridot yells at the top of her lungs with irritation. Lapis flinches and Peridot takes a few seconds to regain her composure. "Look, Lapis. They're dense. I mean really, really dense. And they are a little... Intimidating... Ok alot intimidating... Ok, frack that! They're downright terrifying! But please... Try to talk to them."

"Best case scenario, Peridot. They let me live." Lapis says as she tries to wipe the tears from her eyes and stop crying. "But, I don't think I can do it... I don't think I can live here with them..."

"I recommended that we stay here." Peridot explains with a smile. "I never meant that we stay with them."

Lapis just looks at Peridot with confusion, still sniffling.

"Lapis. The Earth is pretty big. I know because those clods chased me half way around it." Peridot explains. "Why don't we... See the rest?"

"You want to travel?" Lapis asks confused. "The tiny little gem who spent days at a time infront of a screen at a desk wants to travel?"

"I'm not tiny!" Peridot says. "... But yes. Its been decided for us that we're stuck here. We might as well make the most of it." Peridot pauses for a bit before continuing. "I propose that we see what this world has to offer. If we find a place we like better than Beach City, we stay there. If not, well, the Earth is round... We'll find our way back here eventually."

"... We..." Lapis repeats with a soft smile. Its been so long since that word included her and didn't involve a festering amalgam of hate.

Lapis wipes the tears from her eyes, and Peridot helps her up. The two of them walk out of the barn together. Once out of the barn, Lapis and Peridot nod to each other in agreement. Lapis walks over to the Crystal Gems as Steven and Connie walk over to Peridot.

"Crystal Gems. We need to talk." Lapis says. She is trying to sound polite but the tone is still very hard and angry.

The Crystal Gems all look at each other then back to Lapis. "Uhm... Ok..." Pearl says. The four of them walk towards the woods for some privacy.

"So... What do you think they're talking about?" Connie asks, eyes alight with thoughts of the possibilities.

"Something important?" Steven asks.

"Something important." Peridot affirms with a smile.

((Something important indeed. This chapter is a bit short... Wow... I went from apologizing for long chapters to apologizing for short ones... WTF SC! Oh well. Back to what I was gonna say. Yeah!

A Long Weekend is gonna be wrapping up soon, but I guess you could all tell based on the fact that the chapter titles are now on Sunday. Depending on how I break up the rest, we've got 2 or 3 chapters left. So, this work will probably wrap up before the end of the week... Then I'm gonna take some time to story board then I'm gonna move onto my next story idea. Why? Because I like making things for you gems to read!

My plans for the upcoming chapters are the cluster (of course), the epilogue (had an intro might as well have an epilogue), and a chapter where I will pretty much just explain my reasonings behind things on a chapter by chapter basis. So PM me with any questions, from now and until the last chapter is out. I'll answer them there.! Until then, here's a message to decipher! No clue. figure it out yourself.

Vhsg sgd tobnlhmf gnkhczxr, ozqshdr zqd hm nqcdq! Ld, H khjd jzqznjd! H vnmcdq he sgd fdlr khjd jzqznjd? ))


	15. Sunday Prevening

After a couple minutes of waiting, Lapis, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl haven't come back yet. Connie, Steven, and Peridot are getting anxious.

"Hey... Do you two want to she how the controls work for the drill?" Peridot asks.

"Sure!" Connie says with excitement.

"You two go ahead. I'll catch up later." Steven says as he spots Lapis coming out of the woods, the others following a little later.

"Lapis!" Steven calls out beckoning her over. Lapis approaches Steven.

"What's the matter Steven?" Lapis asks Steven. He looks upset about something.

"I overheard you and Peridot in the barn." Steven says in a hushed and sad tone. "You really don't trust us, do you?"

"Us?" Lapis asks confused.

"Me and the other Crystal Gems." Steven says.

"No. No. No." Lapis reassuringly says. "I trust you with my life! We're Beach Summer Fun Buddies afterall... Its the Crystal Gems I don't trust."

"But... I am a Crystal Gem!" Steven explains with frustration.

"Not to me, you're not." Lapis states. Steven looks confused. "Look, Steven. I've been around a long time. I've seen the Crystal Gems, and you're not like them. You're nice, and sweet, and see the good in everyone. Even complete strangers like Peridot and myself. It's not part of their image."

"Then... We'll just make a new image!" Steven says with a wide grin. "The New Crystal Gems! Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Lapis, Peridot, Lion, Connie, Dad, and Steven!"

"That's alot of people there, little man." Lapis says with a smile.

"More people means less lonely people." Steven says with a smile. That last statement tugs at Lapis's heart strings and she sincerely smiles.

"Alright, Steven." Lapis says with a smile. "You win. I'll give these _New Crystal Gems_ a chance."

Lapis and Steven both walk towards the drill, smiling, hand in hand.

Meanwhile... At the drill... The other gems are getting ready to go.

"Alright Gems! Lets get ready!" Garnet announces.

Peridot and Connie walk out of the drill, casually talking about the various features of the drill.

"Peridot... What were you and Connie doing inside the drill?" Pearl asks confused.

"She was showing me how the sensors work!" Connie exclaims with starry eyes. "It's amazing!"

"Yes. For a human, Connie has a remarkable grasp for scientific principles." Peridot says matter of factly. Connie beams with pride.

"Good." Pearl says with a smile, patting Connie on the top of the head. "Connie, I have a task for you."

"Yes, ma'am?" Connie asks.

"I would like you to monitor the consoles on the trip." Pearl explains.

"But, what about me!?" Peridot asks angrily.

"You have a more important job." Pearl says as she motions her head towards Lapis and Steven walking towards them. "You have to keep the peace between Lapis and the other gems... I can't believe I'm saying this..." Pearl sighs. "... But you are the only gem that everyone in the back likes. We need you to keep thing peaceful."

Peridot salutes. "Mission accepted!"

Pearl looks confused at Peridot for a moment before taking Connie into the drill to get situated.

"Oh! Lapis!" Peridot says, catching Lapis's attention. "Before we leave! Could you... Get me my limb enhancers?"

"Oh... Sorry Peridot." Lapis explains. "We didn't bring them with us..."

"Well, can't you use your water powers and just retrieve them!?" Peridot asks.

Lapis chuckles. "Its really sweet that you think that I'm that powerful." Lapis explains. "But I don't have magic extendo-senses that tell me where everything in the ocean is... Also, I think Malachite may have stepped on them... Oopsies?"

Peridot groans out of frustration.

"Peridot. Over the past week, you've done alot of incredible things." Steven says. "You even beat Malachite! And without your limb enhancers! You don't need them!"

Lapis and Steven walk into the drill. "Yeah!" Peridot says with confidence. "I don't need them! I've done fine on my own! Its not like I'm..." Her confidence starts to fade. "Going into an unknown environment... Perhaps swarming with abominations... With nowhere to run..." Peridot's knees start to shake.

"BOO!" Amethyst yells into Peridot's ear.

Peridot screams and jumps high into the air. When she's come to her senses, she notices that she's clinging onto something big and squishy. Its like a big, black, comfy marshmallow. She climbs on top of it to get a better view on what she's holding onto... It's Garnet's head. Everyone comes out of the drill to see why Peridot was screaming.

"Wow... I see why you like it up here, Steven!" Peridot says in amazement. "Its so comfortable and soft! And so spacious!... And would you look at this view!" Peridot waves down at Pearl. "Hi, Pearl! For once, I am the one looking down at you!" Peridot laughs triumphantly before Garnet reaches up at takes Peridot off her head.

"Hey!" Peridot says angrily.

"That's Steven's spot." Garnet says.

"Oh, I don't mind sharing." Steven says with a grin.

"Well, I do." Garnet says as she tosses Peridot at Pearl. Pearl catches Peridot in her arms.

"You just can't go a day without making somebody mad, can you Peridot?" Pearl asks with a sigh.

"What did I do!?" Peridot angrily complains as she starts squirming around.

"I have no idea how you put up with this the whole way back to Earth." Pearl admiringly tells Lapis as she carries the squirming Peridot into the drill.

"She was far more reserved when we first met." Lapis said with a smile. "That was nice, but I like this Peridot too." She pats Peridot on the head, and she stops squirming... Still looks frustrated though. "The boundless enthusiasm is charming."

"Not exactly how I'd describe it." Amethyst says with a smirk.

After everything is situated and all of the travelers are buckled up, the Gem Drill begins its long descent into the center of the Earth... A half hour later...

"Are we there yet?" Steven and Amethyst ask.

"No!" Everyone replies.

"Are we there yet?" Steven and Amethyst ask.

"No!" Everyone replies.

"Are we there yet?" Steven and Amethyst ask.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Garnet yells. Everyone stops dead in their tracks, frozen in fear. Garnet composes herself before adjusting her visor and speaking again. "Find some other way to entertain yourselves."

"Connie! How long 'til we get to where we're going?" Steven asks.

Connie looks at the sensors. "Looks like another..." Connie groans. "Three hours!"

Everybody except Steven groans in frustration.

"I'm losing it!" Lapis snaps. "We're stuck in here! It's horrible!"

"Find a way to calm down!" Peridot sternly states.

At this point, garnet gets up and walks to the front. Lapis times a fart noise to make it sound like Garnet had let one rip. Steven, Peridot, and Amethyst all laugh. Lapis seems to have calmed down.

An hour later... Lapis and Steven are alternating fart noises. Amethyst and Peridot look like they're about to rip their hair out.

"CAN'T YOU DO SOMETHING ELSE!" Amethyst yells in desperation.

Lapis lets out one last weak little fart noise before a few moments of silence.

"Oh! I know!" Steven says as he gets up and looks through a box. He pulls out a tiny machine with three microphones attached and a tiny little screen.

"What is that?" Peridot asks.

"Its a Karaoke Machine!" Steven says.

"Oh boy..." Amethyst whispers under her breath.

"What is this _karaoke_?" Peridot asks.

"Its a singing game!" Steven explains.

"Oh joy... Like Pearl doesn't do that enough..." Peridot complains, Amethyst giggles.

"It'll be fun!" Steven says.

"I don't sing." Peridot says.

"Yes you do!" Lapis argues. "When your alone with your robo-nerd things!"

"YOU HEARD THAT!?" Peridot says in shock. Amethyst is losing it in the corner.

"See!" Steven says. "It'll be great! We can all sound bad together!"

"I don't know..." Peridot says.

"Yeah... I agree with Dot on this one." Amethyst says. "I don't think Peridot is a very good singer."

"How do you know!" Peridot yells.

"Well..." Amethyst eggs her on. "If you were any good at it, you'd be willing to give it a shot, right?"

Peridot angrily groans. "I'll show you! Steven! Lapis! We're playing this _Karaoke_ , and we're going to **defeat** it!"

"That's the spirit!" Steven says all starry-eyed. Meanwhile, Amethyst looks so proud of herself for convincing the nerd to try karaoke.

Two hours later...

"HERE I STAND IN THE LIGHT OF DAY! LET THE STORM RAGE ON! The cold never bothered me anyway!" Lapis, Peridot, and Steven are all singing.

Amethyst is in the fetal position in the corner repeatedly yelling "Make it stooooop! I'm sorry!"

Garnet is smacking her head off the side of the wall.

Pearl's eyes are twitching as she's gripping the controls like a vice. "Stay focused. Gotta get us to the center of the Earth... Hahahahahaha..."

Connie is happily humming along with the song.

"ONE MORE TIME!" Lapis, Peridot, Steven, and Connie yell.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst all scream. "Haaaaaave mercy!" Amethyst adds on.

Suddenly, the drill breaks through dirt, revealing an observation room with flickering lights and monitors. The place is wrecked, but it all seems to be in working order. There's a huge glass panel, long since shattered overlooking a giant amalgam of shards fused together... The Cluster.

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl all run out of the drill and hug the ground.

"Thank goodness!" Pearl yells in joy.

"Finally! The worst is behind us!" Garnet says with a sigh of relief.

"Oh man..." Steven says with a sigh. "The trip was just getting good."

"Don't worry Steven." Connie says. "There's always the way back... Then we can sing together!"

((We've all had road trips like this. And if you haven't... Go on more road trips. That was fun to write. Not much to say about this chapter except that the CG's really need to just "Let it go"... Hehehe. Bad joke is bad.

I figured Let It Go had lyrics that Lapis and Peridot could both relate to in different ways and the beat was catchy enough for Steven to get into it. Then that song gets played to death... My nieces still play that song to death... I feel bad for my brother... But yeah. Comedy is derived from tragedy, so lets torture the CGs with overly addicting Disney songs for our amusement. And if that bothers you well... "Let it Go." XD ))


	16. Sunday Evening

"I don't know about you Steven," Lapis states with a smile as she walks out of the drill, "but I thought we sounded great."

Steven smile back, and the moment is ruined with a chorus of loud shrieks emanating from just outside the observatory.

"At least better than that!" Lapis yells over the shrieking. She gets into a ready stance, and her water wings emerge from her gem.

"Aw man!" Amethyst groans as she, Garnet, and Pearl get ready and summon their weapons. "We just can't catch a break today!"

Dozens of Gem Mutants of various shapes, sizes, and limb counts start crawling into the observatory through the broken windows, their shrieks piercing the musty air. The gems spread out and form a semi-circle to intercept the muntants expanding out from the drill. Without saying a word, Steven holds his hand out, and Connie accepts. With a quick spin and a dip followed by a glow of light emanating from the two children, Stevonnie has joined the fight! She reaches into the doorway of the drill and retrieves Rose's Sword, unsheathed and ready to go.

She fills in the gap between Amethyst and Garnet, slicing through a mutant cleanly with one slice. It poofs but nothing hits the ground. "Guys!" Stevonnie yells in surprise. "They don't have gems!"

"What!?" Amethyst yells in shock as she spindashes into one and it poofs.

"Are they being generated by The Cluster!?... Peridot! Get the Acoustic Resonator started up!" Pearl yells over the sounds of battle. After several moments of no response, Pearl yells out "Peridot!?"

Lapis gets distracted looking back at the drill, and four mutants dogpile ontop of Lapis. The mutants stay still for a brief second before water spikes impale them and they all poof. Lapis stands back up, her wings in the form of four spider-like spear appendages.

"Peridot!" Lapis faces the drill and yells. Another mutant comes after Lapis, and Pearl blasts it with a laser from her spear.

"Focus!" Garnet yells. "We've got to keep them at bay until the Resonator is ready!" She punches a mutant in the face and it poofs.

As the fight rages on, more and more mutants flood in from the opening but are still being beaten back.

Meanwhile, inside the drill... There is a hole in the bottom of the drill, and the power conduits have all been severed. Peridot is lying curled up in a ball, writhing in pain, her gem blinking as a giant hand with a mouth attached is latched onto her face, biting through her visor and into her gem. The screams she heard a day prior when the mutant had latched onto her gem now resonating in her psyche again. Inside the screams she could hear a voice. It started off far in the distance, but as time went on it got more pronounced... It was her voice, and it was in agony.

Peridot could feel it, The Cluster. She could feel every swing of the gem mutants' arms as if they were her own fingers. She could feel the rage, the hatred, the pain... So much pain. Peridot just wanted the pain to stop. A relief. That's all she wanted. The screams blanketed over Peridot, drowning her senses in complete anguish.

Peridot could feel her strength fading, being consumed by The Cluster. If this continued, she would die... Or worse... Be assimilated into The Cluster. "No!" Peridot yelled inside her head. "No! You have no idea who you're messin' with, you fracken clod! I'm Peridot!" She gets up and runs blindly in a direction, smacking her head off the control panel, poofing the mutant... And breaking the controls to the weapon systems. "... And I'm stubborn!" She says out loud as her visor cracks in half and falls to the ground.

Peridot is breathes heavily but still has the capacity to laugh at her dead enemy's failures... Then she notices the panel. "Oh... The Cluster did it!" Peridot yelled.

Nobody was around to hear. She looks outside the window and sees everyone outside fighting without her. The mutants have gained alot of ground and forced the gems back up against the drill.

"Any time now, Peridot!" Amethyst yells as she Purple Puma uppercuts a mutant straight to oblivion.

Peridot frantically looks around. She sees that the power conduits are all destroyed and that the fuel cells have been punctured. The Acoustic Resonator has taken serious damage, and the control were thrashed. Then she saw it, what was left of the Karaoke machine...

"Of course... Why not?" Peridot groans as she gets to work rigging together a contraption.

Peridot finishes putting the last pieces of her contraption together when another mutant pops out of the hole, she tosses out and through the front window of the Gem Drill. It lands ontop of another mutant, and Garnet crushes them both. Peridot walks out through the window, and stands on the drill, microphone in her hand.

"Peridot!" Everyone yells, glad to see that she's ok.

"Just a warning. If this doesn't work... We all die." Peridot says matter of factly, and destroying the mood. Everybody looks concerned now.

Peridot closes her eyes and concentrates. Her gem glows and sputters, running low on energy because of those annoying draining mutants, but it flares up. As it does, yellow lines of energy travel trough Peridot's body, into her arms and legs. From there, they extend into the Gem Drill and the microphone. The Gem Drill revs back up. The others look on in astonishment.

"What?" Peridot asks with smirk. "Did you think my limb enhancers had an internal power source?"

Everyone nods.

Peridot closes her eyes, and the rigged resonator activates. It picks a song from the Karaoke playlist at random, and plays it with a distorted synthesized tone. But Peridot knew this wouldn't be enough. This frequency would hit the resonance for the most abundant gemstone on Earth, quartz. But it still needs to hit other frequencies at various intervals for that... Peridot mentally groaned... She knew what had to be done, and the other gems were busy fighting off the mutants. With no screen and no assistance, Peridot would have to sing.

((Thought the Karaoke Machine was a one off joke? Nope! Life is a Karaoke Dance Party, and now its Peridot's time to sing solo!

Me and my brother have had this debate repeatedly since I had won the argument that Peridot's Limb Enhancers weren't part of her body. He argued that Peridot's weapon is probably summoning another set of limb enhancers. I think that doesn't make much sense.

My theory is that Peridot has several abilities based solely for her constructed purpose as a technician. First, Psychometry. Garnet can see the future, so why can't Peridot see what things are for? It makes sense considering that within seconds she knows enough about earth tools to build a robot (even though she holds the tools wrong, but no extra senses are perfect), and she was able to deduce the purpose of the home telephone and microwave she destroyed without any prior observation of their uses. Second, energy generation. Peridot's limb enhancers fell, dead as a doornail after Peridot poofed, so they didn't have an internal power source. Or else the fingers wouldn't have fallen limp automatically. Second, having the ability to generate energy and power objects would be incredibly useful for a technician out on the field. Are these her only powers? I don't think so. Does she have a weapon? I hope so. I'm hoping that its something cool like energy manipulation... Imagine Peridot firing magic gem blasts and being all "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" as she fires hadoukens at a raccoon... THE GREAT SAIYA-DOT!

On a completely different note, I decided to introduce Stevonnie in more of a Smash Brothers' approach. I went with the subtle pun of "Stevonnie has joined the fight", over something more obvious like "Stevonnie gets her act together."))


	17. Sunday Night

Peridot deeply inhaled and slowly exhaled. She could feel the disturbance caused by the resonator under her feet and hear a faint buzzing sound coming from the Cluster. She could tell that the gems were still fighting off constructs. The music that was played had a very familiar beat to it. It didn't take her long to realize what it was. It was the song that the Sapphire was humming when the Crystal Gems were her prisoners, but she could reminisce about the old days later. Now she had to focus on the present.

Peridot feels the thud of something landing on the drill near her. She slowly opened her eyes, seeing that a gem mutant had gotten past the Crystal Gems and was staring her down as the music continues. Peridot begins to sing.

"Its Peridot

off the tether

And I'm never gonna live this down from those Crystal Gems

but I feel so much better

that every part of me is saying 'Whatever'.

I'm done living under tyrannical rule,

following orders like some autonomous tool."

The Gem Mutant looks at Peridot and turns its head cockeyed in confusion.

"Let's go, you find this odd?

Let's go, you stupid clod!"

The mutant swings it arm down towards Peridot, and she rolls in between the mutant's legs, dodging the swing. Peridot gets up and kicks the back of the mutant's knee so it falls down on the ground.

"Go ahead and try to hit me if you're able.

But his faith in me makes me very stable.

I can see you hate the freedom I'm enjoying.

But I think you're just mad 'cause you're annoying."

The mutant gets back up and grabs Peridot by the arm, holding her up into the air and punching her with the other hand.

"You're not gonna end what they've done together.

Earth is gonna stay like this forever.

If you tear me apart, I'll just fight back smarter.

And I'll always be twice as great as you are."

The fist connects with Peridot's face. She bites it, and the monster lets her go while letting out a scream. She then proceeds to punch it several times.

"I am just ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn

Stu-u-u-u-bborn

Stu-u-u-u-bborn"

As the music is playing without any singing, the gem mutant has enough of Periodt's ineffective strikes and kicks her back through the window and inside the Gem Drill. It goes in after her. Meanwhile, the pieces of the Cluster are starting to vibrate heavily under the influence of the resonance.

"Hey Garnet... Isn't that your song?" Stevonnie asks as they cleaves through several gem mutants with a single sword swing.

Garnet shrugs. "Eh... Its a good cover." She then punches a mutant into another and they domino over each other.

Inside the Gem Drill, Peridot gets back up all wobbly, now wearing a headset microphone. She begins singing again.

"Yes I've made mistakes.

But that is how you grow.

and I've made some enemies here

that I've grown to love and know.

For them I will stand firm.

And I will never fall.

And I won't let you hurt this planet

I won't lose to you at all."

She football tackles right into the mutant. It stands firm and begins hitting her in the back with its hulking arms.

"Go ahead and try to hit me if you're able.

But his faith in me makes me very stable.

I know you think you are somthin' i'm afraid of.

'Cause I know that you've seen what I'm made of."

She grabs tightly around the mutant and with all her might actually manages to lift and toss the thing. It lands on its ass. Peridot is running on adrenaline now.

"But I am even more than a Peridot.

I am gonna show you everything I've got!"

It gets up as she runs at it.

"I have a temper."

She slides under its legs and then jumps into the control console.

"I have no patience."

She jumps back off the console and dive kicks for the mutant.

"I have unbridled fury!"

The dive kick connects, and the mutant poofs in a cloud.

"I am just

Ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn Ve-e-e-e-ry

And I'm better than you.

Stu-u-u-u-bborn Ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn

And I'm better than you.

Ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn Ve-e-e-e-ry

And I'm better than you.

Ve-e-e-e-ry

Stu-u-u-u-bborn Stu-u-u-u-bborn"

As she finishes up the song, Peridot sits down in the copilot seat. She breathes heavily as she takes off the headset and sets her hands on whats left of the dashboard. Her limbs begin glowing brighter now as she begins to focus more energy on powering the drill for a retreat. The mutants outside all begin screaming and poofing. The Cluster hits a high vibration to the point where its producing a deafeningly high pitched whistle. It breaks apart like glass.

After it breaks apart, the observation room begins to shake violently.

"Its a load bearing boss!" Stevonnie yells.

"Get in the Drill!" Garnet yells.

Everyone gets into the drill, and Pearl floors it in reverse as the observation bay falls apart and magma begins pouring into the vicinity, destroying the observation area and all of the shards. They race backwards trying to out run the magma as Stevonnie quietly splits back into Steven and Connie. Eventually the Gem Drill makes it away from the lava, only getting partly melted.

There are cheers and hugs going all around, but they all sound blurry and distant to Peridot. In her ears, she can hear a ringing noise, but she puts all of her focus on the task at hand. At some point durring the trip back, she felt hands rubbing the top of her head, a hug or two, and the feeling like someone kissed her cheek... But she didn't know who or what did any of that.

Eventually the adrenaline is extinguished. Everyone is silent, and Connie and Steven are asleep. The drill makes it to the surface, and Garnet wakes Steven and Connie.

"Thank goodness its all over." Pearl said with a sigh of relief as she looks out towards the horizon and the setting sun. "You really came through for us, Peridot."

Pearl turns to face Peridot, only to see a poof of smoke. Peridot's gem hits the floor of the Drill, and all drill functions cease.

((Dun dun dunnnnnn! *dramatic pause for emphasis* Yeah... That's right... Peridot stole Garnet's "Stronger than you" and made the cover "Better than you." This chapter took me like 3 times as long to write than the others. Because of working on the lyrics for that song... I was gonna have Peridot just sing a generic song like "Let it Go" (again) or just skip over the song entirely... But that didn't feel quite right. So instead, Peridot may or may not have plagiarized... Which suits her just fine, IMO))


	18. Epilogue

"Peridot!?" Pearl yells out in shock. This catches everyone's attention, and they see Pearl holding Peridot's gem.

"What happened!?" Lapis and Steven both yell.

"Its... Over exertion." Pearl says defeatedly. "She's pushed herself to the breaking point."

"Is she going to be ok?" Steven asks.

"I... Don't know..." Pearl says.

"You don't know!?" Lapis yells as gets up in Pearl's face. "What's that supposed to mean!?"

Garnet separates Lapis from Pearl, and Steven lays a reasurring hand on Lapis.

"It means," Pearl explains, "that she's exhausted almost all of the energy in her gem. She can't even retain a physical form."

"But... She'll be back... Right?" Lapis asks tearfully.

"I don't... know..." Pearl admits solemnly.

Lapis hugs Steven and begins to cry. Connie and Pearl look down at the ground.

"... She really gave it her all..." Amethyst depressingly states. "... You go, Peridot..."

Garnet walks up to Pearl and takes Peridot's gem from her. She grabs onto it tightly, but gently at the same time. She focuses and begins discharging electricity into Peridot's gem. Everyone looks on in anticipation. Garnet tries for a long time before she stops, admitting defeat. Everyone looks upon their fallen comrade, grief stricken, when suddenly the gem glows flickers with light.

"I think she's gonna be just fine." Steven says with a smile as he takes the gem into the house.

Three weeks later...

Garnet, Amethyst, Steven, Pearl, and Lapis are all sitting around. Steven and Garnet are watching tv. Amethyst and Lapis are casually talking about the giant lizard monster they killed a few hours ago. Pearl is fiddling around with some robotic thing on the kitchen counter.

Suddenly, there's a flash of light emanating from Peridot's Gem. The gem takes off into the sky, and Peridot emerges from the light. Peridot looks slightly different. Instead of wearing the standard uniform she's always had, the upper torso now resembles a t-shirt. It still has the same color pattern and design... Except the diamond has been replaced with a star.

Everyone looks at Peridot.

"Wh-What!?" Peridot asks all confused and nervous. "Is this not a satisfactory form?"

Garnet puts reassuring hand on Peridot's shoulder and smiles. "You look great." Peridot smiles.

"Group hug!" Amethyst yells, dragging everyone into the hug. You can hear Peridot's groans of frustrations from inside the hug, but eventually she gives into the happy feelings.

A few days later...

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Steven asks sadly.

"We're sure, Steven." Peridot says with a smile. "Don't worry. We'll be back at some point before you all die."

Lapis smacks Peridot in the side and Peridot lets out an "oof" followed by a joking laugh.

"Before we decide on staying in Beach City, we want to go out and see the rest of the world." Lapis explains with a smile. "We want to know about the new world we call home."

Steven gives both of them a hug, and the other gems show up.

"You weren't thinking on leaving without saying goodbye to us, were ya?" Amethyst asks with a grin.

"Perhaps that was our intent." Peridot says with a grin.

Amethyst gets Peridot in a headlock and noogies her.

"We have something for you both." Garnet says as she hands Lapis a cell phone.

"What is this?" Lapis asks.

"Its a phone." Garnet says. "Use it to keep in touch and send plenty of pictures for Steven."

Lapis smiles, and puts it in a pocket in her dress.

"And this is for you, Peridot." Pearl says as she hands her a backpack. Peridot opens it up to find a brand new set on limb enhancers. Not as big as the older pair, but still green and pretty sleek.

"I was able to replicate most of the major functions, with the exceptions of the laser cannon and destabalizing shocks." Pearl explains. "Its also alot lighter and more dynamic than your older set, so it should be more maneuverable."

Peridot just looks down at the limb enhancers. She is at a loss for words... For like a second. "Thank you, Pearl. I don't think that I'll be relying on them too often. But, I am glad to have another set... And these are really **really** nice!... I mean... How did you get them to be so aerodyna-"

"Well, we best get going." Lapis says cutting Peridot off. Peridot silently nerdgasming over her new shiny toys.

With a long list of goodbyes, Lapis and Peridot set off into the setting sun. Off to new adventures. Off to discover a whole new world of possibilities. Off to begin the next chapter of their lives.

((And as a Christmas gift to you all, here is a second chapter in one day! The epilogue! So yeah... This wraps up the story of "A Long Weekend" and oh boy was it a long weekend. Officially, its over... But I plan on writing one more chapter explaining why I did certain things on a chapter by chapter basis.

Thank you all so much for following and the positive reinforcement! It feels great knowing that there's people actually enjoying something that I'm writing! Because of you guys, I plan on sticking with writing other works! But until then... *poofs*... See ya when I reform! XD))


	19. EXPOSITION

NOTE: Since this is not part of the story, I did not bother formatting or spell checking. Also... DANG STEVEN BOMB 4 WAS AWESOME! Since I wrote this story (and exposition) before the bomb dropped, I left it unchanged. Some of my opinions may have changed due to the bomb. But thats the great part of being in the fanbase of a show thats still on the air! Thoughts and opinions grow and change with the show.

Hey all! I live again! Visited friends and family for the holidays. Now that I'm back and with a steady internet connection, I'm here with the Exposition I said I'd do. This "chapter" Isn't part of the story. Its just things I feel like sharing about my thought processes and whatnot for each chapter as well as answering questions I may have gotten... Most of which were from my cousin over Christmas dinner... Made things kinda awkward, but oh well. Her and I are both made of awkward. Anyways... Onto the Exposition!

Chapter 1 - Intro

I really don't have much to say about this. My brother and I were talking about our various Steven Universe theories and head canons. He said that my ideas were "fic-worthy" and he convinced me to write up a fanficiton. I made this chapter. He liked it. I made about 4 more and had concepts in mind for the rest of the story. He said he'd buy me a pizza if I put it online... I'm still waiting for my pizza.

Chapter 2 - Thursday Night

I made this chapter running under the theory that the Crystal Gems aren't too keen on adding new members of the group. Garnet and Pearl out of trauma of losing past friends in the war and Amethyst mostly out of seeing Garnet and Pearl react the way they do. Amethyst and Pearl however had warmed up to Peridot atleast a little bit in "Back to the Barn" and "Too Far." Meanwhile we didn't have a magical field trip episode with Garnet and Garnet is the one who seemed (IMO) to have the most of a grudge against Peridot. Makes sense too considering her stance on fusion, what the Cluster is, and that for the longest time Peridot's face was the face of the villain responsible for wanting to pick up where homeworld left off.

I thought of reusing Lapis's mirror idea because having insight into the enemy is an invaluable resource and if Lapis's mirror was capable of replaying anything it witnessed, it would make sense to use it to access Peridot's memories and knowledge of homeworld. It also seemed like one of those "really cruel but necessary for victory" tactics often used by military leaders to attain victory... So yeah... DRAMA!

Chapter 3 - Friday Morning (Part 1)

I had Garnet break Peridot's tape recorder because Garnet has a tendency to hit first, ask questions never. And I needed something to egg the confrontation on. Garnet wouldn't go out of her way to cause too big of a problem before the Cluster is dealt with. Peridot on the other hand throws temper tantrums, and as Steven said "[they] kinda destroyed all of her stuff." That tape recorder was all Peridot had left. She had nothing else, not even the guarantee of living beyond her usefulness. Break the tape recorder, break Peridot.

Why did Ruby and Sapphire split? Garnet is literally held together by love. Therefore it made sense to me that Peridot having no concept whatsoever of what love is would be an incomprehensible scenario for Garnet and put Ruby and Sapphire at ends. Ruby, the more emotion driven of the two wouldn't be able to grasp it at all. Sapphire would be more understanding but in the end that wouldn't be enough to sustain the fusion.

Chapter 4 - Friday Morning (Part 2)

This chapter pretty much wrote itself. Playing off how Ruby and Sapphire acted in "Keystone Motel" It is safe enough to assume that Ruby would overreact, but Sapphire would try and understand with information she had at hand. Peridot's unprecedented lack of Earth Vocabulary was a solid stance to go by.

Why the "What is Love" reference? Why not?

Why does Peridot flinch so easily when Ruby is much smaller than Garnet? Several reasons. Ruby had already attacked once. Peridot flinches at a rolled up towel in "Catch and Release." And I run with the theory that the superiors in homeworld have a might makes right mentality and that because of Peridot's low standing and her constantly failing her duties because of the interference of the Crystal Gems Peridot has been physically assaulted by her superiors in the past.

Why ask Peridot to fuse? Its easier to experience a feeling then to describe it. Peridot didn't have a comprehension of love. Telling her about it would lead nowhere. Showing her how Ruby and Sapphire felt would be the quickest and most effective way to make Peridot understand.

Chapter 5 - Friday Afternoon

This is a short one so there's only really one thing to cover. Why didn't sapphire see this outcome with her future vision? I don't believe her future vision is perfect. I believe that it has some serious flaws. If the future vision foresaw every possible outcome, the sheer immenseness of probable outcomes would drive Garnet/Sapphire mad. There are just too many possibilities. If there weren't an infinite stream of possibilities, and only a few could exist and no others, that would lead credence to the theory that there is no such thing as free will and that choices are predetermined for you. So I believe that the future vision is more like an enchanced form of mental probability calculation. Based on the information at hand and what she knows, Garnet can see possible outcomes, but not the future directly.

Which in itself explains a few plot holes created by future vision. She couldn't see the future of it being Pearl who fixed the communications hub because in her mind it could have only been Peridot. There were no outcomes seen of it being Pearl. That explains why the destabalizer hit Garnet on the beach. She didn't know what it was and therefore see what it could do to her. So she just assumed it was a simple weapon.

Why would Peridot run off? I would.

Why didn't Garnet go after Peridot? BSOD.

Chapter 6 - Friday Evening

I made this chapter solely for the purpose of delving a bit into the CG's minds. That's really it. Also, I felt like Peridot needed a little privacy from us prying into her life for 5 chapters. Then the ending was made as a way to put Greg into the plot.

Why have Greg hit Peridot with the car? Wouldn't he be paying attention to the road? It made me giggle.

Chapter 7 - Friday Night

The biggest parts of this chapter were Greg's sagely wisdom and Peridot's justifications. For Greg's sagely wisdom, I looked back at all of the times Greg had talked to Steven and Connie. He's really got his wise old man credentials down pact. So I knew that I could get away with Greg being reasurring and giving sound advice and it would still be in character. Then sprinkle in some references to dialog in the show and BAM! Dr Greg is born!

As for why Peridot reacted to the strong feelings between Ruby and Sapphire, it stems back to the theory of physical abuse and the gem homeworld tier system. Peridot is a technician. She is built to do her job. If she failed at her duties then she'd get disciplined. There is no compassion in a situation such as this. That would explain why she's nice to Steven. He's quite possibly the only thing that's shown him compassion. Now take somebody who has never felt anything like love and make them experience such a strong love instantly, it'll leave a mark. Hell, it left a mark on Pearl and she has felt love before. Now combine that with Peridot's thoughts of being imprisoned once destroying the Cluster is over... It becomes: "I've never felt anything like this before... And you're going to kill me before I can experience it for myself... How... How could you!?"

Why the Bathroom? Its a safe place for Peridot. Also... I got to make a poop joke! XD

Chapter 8 - Saturday Morning

I really liked the idea of Peridot going all Home Alone / Three Yackity Sax on the gem mutants. Peridot has shown that she is very resourceful and that she can't fight on her own very well if at all. So Peridot would have to get creative. While I really enjoyed writing that fight sequence, the important part for me was the aftermath. No matter what happened in the fight, Peridot was going to lose and get saved.

This chapter was written from the get-go with a "revelation" mentality. The CGs have the revelation that Peridot views their home as a safe place which points towards her having trust in them. Greg appearing in a bubble shows the CGs that Peridot is willing to save humans before she herself is out of danger, showing that she has what it takes to be a defender of Earth. Peridot then has the revelation that the Cluster is far more horrible than she had ever imagined and that Homeworld is responsible for such an abomination. Also, the gems had come for Peridot. That was something that not even Yellow Diamond had done for her. It showed Peridot that she may in fact have a place where she belongs.

The discarding of the broken mirror was a touch of symbolism added in for extra effect.

Why the energy draining? Thought it would be cool to have a gem mutant that fed on energy. Figured that after it fully drained a gem, it would assimilate the drained gem into itself for more power... Also I saw an Alien movie marathon and had face huggers on the mind.

Chapter 9 - Saturday Afternoon / Evening

I started mid-action because I felt that each chapter up until now had a hook from the previous one drawing it in... But the last chapter before this resolved the first part of the story. Honestly, if it was just a story about Peridot's acceptance into the CGs I could've stopped there. But this was about the entire weekend and all that transpires. So I felt that I needed some kind of hook right off the gates. So, lets start mid action! Also, it gave me a chance to show how I figured all 5 gems would interact together in a high stress scenario before dealing with the Cluster. Gives it a bit more depth IMO. That and I got to use a free falling Sugilite punch... Hulk would be proud of his giant purple friend.

The limb enhancers finding their way to Malachite is my theory as to what would cause Lapis to lose control of the fusion and allow Jasper to take over and rampage. I have this theory that Peridot and Lapis communicated and were on atleast decent terms with each other. Mostly because Peridot knew that Steven fixed Lazulli's gem and Jasper knew absolutely nothing on Steven. Then Malachite rampages and nobody told Peridot about the fusion, so I thought it would be fun ending with her getting shocked.

Why use "frack?" Its a good homage to science fiction of yore and because of oil fracking being a type of drilling thing now, it made sense gems would use it as a curse word. Yay for thematically appropriate censoring!

Chapter 10/11 - Saturday Night

For me, this was about the fight more than anything else. I had Malachite beat Alexandrite because while Alexandrite is more powerful, Jasper hasn't been sitting around eating Cheesy Chaaaaps for 5,000 years. She's been a part of Homeworld's military all that time and probably longer also since she fought on Earth. Experience adds to combat prowess, and she's just had more than the Crystal Gems have had recently. So, yeah, I believe they've gone soft... To the point where Pearl LOST TO FRYBO! UGH!

As for why I had the fart joke done by Peridot, I like the idea that its a fart joke that separates Malachite. Jasper is too straight faced to not take offense and Lapis abused the hell out of that joke herself.

As for the fight of Peridot vs Jasper... Let's be honest. Even a weakened to near poofing Jasper could still beat the crap out of our favorite angry space pie... Though I do think Peridot's quick thinking and ability to escape just about everything would help keep her alive long enough for the people she trusts to come to her rescue.

Why does Steven have his healing spit back in this fiction? I don't think he ever lost it. Look at the facts. It works on Greg, Connie, and Lapis. It fails on the Geode and homeworld warp. I think his healing spit only works on things that are alive... If it didn't it would also make eating meat based products very awkward... Yes that was a dumb joke. But stupid humor keeps me feeling sane.

Chapter 12 - Sunday Morning

I think all Sunday mornings deserve to be lazy sundays. So, I didn't want much beyond talking to happen. As to why Peridot would like to sleep... Dreams dood. Dreams. In dreams you can be as big and powerful as your mind wants. Thus, Yellow Diamond Peridot. Not much else to say for this as to why I did what I did for this chapter. And for the record, I would like to clarify... "Yes. I do spend alot of time in Lapidot Hell." But I tried to not let any of that find its way into the fiction. I have a headcannon that Lapis and Peridot had become friendly with each other while working together, and I left their relationship as thus, friends.

As for the end with Mayor Dewey still being stuck in his car on the beach, a friend pointed out that Dewey wasn't helped last time we saw him. So I added that bit in as a joke.

Chapter 13 - Sunday Noon

I made this solely to show Lapis's hostility towards the other Gems while showing Peridot's assimilation into group dynamics. This would then be the primary source of tension between Lapis and Peridot. Something that in retrospect I probably should have delved deeper into in the next chapter. But hindsight is 20/20.

I added the idea of Sonic Resonance because it makes more sense to attack the Cluster in a way that wouldn't cause it to explode because blowing up something big in the center of the earth is bad... I mean Dr Evil level bad. Who knows what could happen? Volcanic eruptions, damage to the tectonic plates? A shift in the rotational axis? Nothing? Its best for the future of the Earth to find the safest way of dealing with it as possible, and Sonic Resonance made sense to me considering that the cluster is a melded fusion, so the shards would still retain all original properties. And like an opera singer singing at glass, eventually the stress points would fracture.

Why did I make that comment at the end about the Letter Q? It was a reference to Sesame Street. Since I packed alot of sciency stuff in this chapter I wanted to give homage to learning shows and sesame street is by far the most iconic.

Chapter 14 - Sunday Afternoon

I made this chapter to show that Peridot's alignment with the gems could cause tension... As stated earlier I now feel that I have glanced over that a little too much. But hey. Its my first fan fiction. I also made this chapter to express my thoughts that Lapis would be willing to begrudgingly work with the Crystal Gems if she has to... But she won't like it.

Chapter 15 - Sunday Prevening

It takes a long time to get to the center of the Earth. This was kind of a clip show chapter showing how the gems would all pass the time in a confined space. Some things I intentionally added to irritate people. Not because I wanted to piss off my readers but because it feels more believable if the Gems are irritated by the same things we are irritated with. Like the "Are we there yet" and the repeated singing of "Let it Go".

Chapter 16 - Sunday Evening

This chapter is pretty much made of my theories. If centipeetle can make gemless offshoots then the Cluster could theoretically do it as a self defense mechanism. I also think the Cluster will be conscious... Why? Mary Shelly's Frankenstein was conscious. I also think Peridots in general have the ability to power objects with their gems. It would make sense for technicians to have portable batteries wherever they go.

Why does the Cluster absorb energy? No idea really. I think its cool. Also Alien face hugger references are fun. Especially when its subtle.

Chapter 17 - Sunday Night

THIS TOOK FOREVER! Mostly because of the song. Though in my mind, I kept seeing Peridot sing this to Yellow Diamond instead of the Cluster. But I could also picture Peridot imagining that she's singing it to Yellow Diamond... But probably be too scared to actually do it. Why make a parody of Stronger than You? There's a Lapis version online... So why not make a Peridot one? Also the idea just kinda drilled itself into my mind and stayed there.

Why did Peridot poof? Combination of energy overexpenditure and energy drain. Gems' bodies are comprised of energy and according to Pearl they "get all the energy they need from their gem." So, if they lose enough energy, they in theory should not be able to maintain their physical form. Also, I believe that if a Gem were to waste that much energy, they may not be able to reform again without an outside charge. Kinda like a battery pack on a cell phone. Good luck using the phone when the juice is gone.

Chapter 18 - Epilogue

I like the idea of Peridot being a tragic heroine and sacrificing herself for the others. I like the idea even more that when when they all think that she's paid the ultimate price she comes back. It gives a sad moment and time to reflect on the metamorphosis of our lovely little dorito and then get to see her come back and continue to grow. I also don't believe that Peridot was ever bad. Just stuck in a job that bored her because it wasn't intellectually stimulating and then the influences of Gem Culture being the only culture she's ever known. Her growth wasn't from Bad to Good but rather from Ignorant to Informed.

Why give Peridot new limb enhancers? The old ones are probably long since destroyed by now, and I like the idea of Peridot getting sleeker ones.

Why travel the world? I like the idea of Lapis and Peridot going on a road trip to discover more about the new home they're going to protect.

Well I had fun doing this work of fiction. And I don't plan to stop. I have several ideas brewing in my head. Some involving fan fiction characters, some entirely original ideas. I plan on writing them down and posting them online. Why? Because all of you reading my work and actually enjoying it. I know it sounds cliche, but it really meant alot to me that people out there found my work to be enjoyable. So thank you all so much, and I'll see you all soon with new works!


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